Spirit of Protection
by Synaps
Summary: It all started with blood magic, human sacrifice and the summoning of a powerful spirit. Just a normal day in Kirkwall... Or it was, until the spirit decided to not kill anyone. That part was unexpected.
1. Prologue: The Summoning

**Prologue: The** **Summoning**

The abandoned warehouse wasn't that different from any other old warehouse by the docks. It was plain, filled with crates and dust. The smell of decaying bodies was thick in the air.

To be fair, it wasn't the only building in Kirkwall to be filled with corpses. That wasn't _actually_ something that set it apart from the rest.

All the same, Hawke prided herself on being a woman of action. If Kirkwall had a problem with refugees being kidnapped off the streets for nefarious purposes, she didn't sit and think about how horrible Kirkwall was to live in, she gathered a team of competent people and set out to do something about it.

Like Aveline, the woman-shaped battering ram and member of the City Guard. Or Bethany, Hawke's baby sister and a skilled mage. Or even Isabela, the pirate and duellist.

The four of them had fought their way through the warehouse, getting attacked by cultists and blood mages in turn. The templars that had asked them to look into matters were nowhere in sight, letting Hawke's team do all the dirty work.

They were by the door to the innermost room, (and wasn't it _always_ the last room with these people?) when they heard the sound of chanting.

Hawke made eye contact with each of her companions in turn, making sure that they were focused, as she counted down from three with her fingers.

They surged through the door with practised organization, the physically weaker members of the team hiding behind Aveline.

Hawke brandished her sword in preparation, only to stop.

They were too late.

Everybody they were there to save, all those missing homeless people, were already dead. Seals were written on the floor with their blood. In the centre stood the leader of the cult, laughing maniacally.

Isabela tried to throw a dagger into his back, but it was blocked by magical electricity. Green lighting erupted from the seal, arching over the room and gathering to form a hole in space.

"A Rift in the Veil." Bethany's mumbled words were filled with equal parts dread and awe.

Hawke was about to ask her how to stop it when a lone figure stepped out of the Rift. The weird lightning cracked and disappeared, repairing the hole. A cold wind blew through the room, smelling like nothing Hawke had ever smelled before. She had to brace herself against it to keep her balance.

The sudden loss of light made it had to see, but Hawke determinedly blinked away the spots in her vision without averting her eyes from the thing that had entered.

At first glance, it looked almost human.

It was a young man, with white hair very unsuitable for its apparent age. Like the demon, or whatever it was, knew how to mimic human appearance but had forgotten how ageing worked for mortals.

However, any pretence she could entertain of it being a human was pushed aside when she saw its eyes. They glowed from within, matching the awful green colour of the lightning that had invited it into their world.

Chills went down Hawke's spine as the creature glanced at them, those dead eyes taking in the room with a cold precision. It reminded her of a bird of prey, knowing the mouse it was hunting wouldn't be able to get away or hide.

Now she had adjusted to the light, she could tell that the entire being glowed with power.

That was never a good sign.

"Great King! I have made this sacrifice in your honour, to summon you to this world!" The cultist leader stopped laughing, falling to his knees in a bow in front of the entity. "Please kill these non-believers who have come to stop your glorious rise!"

The Being-From-Beyond-the-Fade's eyes narrowed, his hands clenching in anger.

Hawke prepared for a fight.

"You killed these people?" The Creature-Not-of-This-World's voice echoed, even though the room was much too small to carry an echo.

"Yes!" The cultist smiled as his accomplishments were acknowledged.

"And those four came here to stop you?"

"Yes!"

Bethany prepared a magical shield to help them against the attack that was sure to come any second.

The Thing-That-Came-Through-the-Rift's hands glowed blue with ice magic.

Aveline widened her stance as she braced herself, holding up Wesley's old shield. (Which only reminded Hawke that those useless templars still hadn't arrived, and that they could use their help.)

The Demon-From-Across-the-Veil gathered his magic, casting Winter's Grasp on the cultist leader – tying him down with ice, but not killing him.

It was at that point that Hawke realised that the Creature's obvious anger wasn't directed at her tiny group.

"You can't just _kill_ people!" The Creature gestured widely, as if trying to encompass the entire room of corpses. "What's _wrong_ with you!?"

The cultist didn't seem to have an answer for that one.

"And you think I'd help you kill some more people!? You're not only a horrible human being, you've got me confused with the old King! You know, you're probably better off with me, he would have ended you for this! Send me back home right this instant," demanded the Creature-Who-Hawke-Might-Have-Made-Rash-Judgements-About.

"I can't!" The cultist leader squirmed under the glowing stare. "Not without making another blood sacrifice!"

"Of course not." The Creature looked very unamused. "What did I expect?"

Hawke looked at the Creature. She should probably say something. Going the aggressive route seemed pointless, and while there was a bad joke in her head trying to get out... The diplomatic way seemed like a good way at that point.

She took a step forward and opened her mouth to say something, when those lousy templars finally arrived.

In typical templar fashion, they took one look at the scene before attacking the otherworldly creature in the center of the bloodbath.

Contrary to expectations, the Creature merely rolled its glowing eyes and dodged the attack by flying out through the ceiling with a type of annoyed calm that made it seem like it did that every day.

Hawke wasn't sure what to think about that.

* * *

 **AN** : The Fade is a realm with a green-tinted sky and floating islands, populated by spirits and called "The Land of the Dead" by the Qunari. I don't think I'm stretching things when I make it the same place as the Ghost Zone. Further, the Rifts in Inquisition remind me of the natural ghost portals in Danny Phantom. (I haven't finished Inquisition, which is why this fic is for DAII)


	2. Getting Robbed

**Getting Robbed  
**

In the semi-darkness of an approaching sunset, nobody would see Danny as he caught his breath on the pointed roof of one of the taller buildings.

Mostly, he was trying not to panic.

Sure, it wasn't the first time he'd been attacked by knights, but nobody had ever _pulled_ him out of the Ghost Zone before. And he had no way back. And his parents were going to notice soon that he was missing. And how would Amity deal with ghosts attacks without him?

Danny took a deep, shuddering breath.

In times like these, the only thing that would keep him from breaking down was having a plan and making bad jokes while executing it.

So, what did he need?

A way back into the Ghost Zone, so that he could fly home again.

The problem was, natural portals were... finicky. There was no way to tell when one would show up. However, in some places they were more frequent than in others. If he could find out some local legends regarding ghosts, he might be able to find a place where they were frequent.

There, that was a plan. Not a solid plan, but it was somewhere to start.

If he wanted to ask people about ghost stories, he needed to blend in. While he wasn't sure exactly when and where the portal had opened up into, his jeans and t-shirt would stick out like a sore thumb in a time of knights. (Not to mention the jumpsuit he wore in ghost form.)

As such, Danny stole some clothes.

The first thing he found on a clothes-line was a ridiculous coat, dark blue with _feathers_ _on_ _the_ _shoulders_ , but it covered him up to the point where he didn't need to steal anything else besides a pair of boots.

Danny turned back into a human, white hair dyeing black and green eyes turning blue. The coat was slightly big on him, with too long sleeves, but it didn't trail on the ground when he walked. The boots fit like a dream.

Feeling a lot better about his situation, Danny walked around a marketplace. The sellers were pulling down their stalls for the day, hauling around boxes of everything from fruits to swords.

Well, business before pleasure.

Danny kept an eye open for anyone who looked willing to talk, but at that hour most of the shop owners were busy taking down their wares. If he had come an hour earlier, he would probably have more luck. Sellers were always willing to talk. Mostly about their wares, but an in was an in.

As such, he spent some time on mostly aimless wandering. His stomach reminded him that he'd left home without eating dinner – he had planned on eating in the Far Frozen, which was where he'd been headed when the not-so-natural portal had opened up.

That was when Danny made a startling discovery.

One of the people by the fruit stand wasn't human.

 _'Not that there was anything_ wrong _with that, I'm not fully human myself..._ ' Danny shook his head to stop his rambling.

The man was about as tall as Danny's dad – practically a giant, but built with much more muscle than Jack Fenton. His skin was a dark grey, as were the _horns_ at the top of his head.

Okaaaaaaaaay. Danny hadn't time travelled. Or maybe medieval Europe was a lot more interesting than Casper High's history lessons made it seem. Danny slept through most of those classes anyway, so maybe he'd just _missed_ the part about horned giants.

He wasn't really _more_ lost just because he had no idea where he was... Danny made a mental note to ignore the dictionary's opinion on the situation. The important thing was, it didn't make any difference to his plan. Find a portal, get home.

There was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that was telling him that he was in way over his head.

* * *

Hightown at night was very different from Hightown during the day.

All the stalls filled with overpriced wares were closed, all the people gone. You were almost guaranteed to be attacked by some cult, or the Carta, or something else.

Hawke found that she preferred the place after hours. Less fake smiles and lies, more action.

Speaking of action, there was a suspiciously large group of people up ahead.

Hawke turned around to make sure her group were prepared for a fight. Aveline was scowling, which meant she was ready to dole out some justice. Varric was wearing a knowing grin. Merrill seemed as oblivious as ever, but she'd snap into action at a moment's notice no matter how far away her thoughts were.

They casually strolled up to the group.

When they got closer, it became apparent that the ten people in leather armour were surrounding one kid. He was a noble, by the looks of it. The coat he was wearing was high-quality.

Aveline, ever the guardswoman, decided to act. "Is there a problem here?"

The kid turned around, his stance relaxed.

Hawke inwardly groaned. The kid obviously didn't know how much danger he was in. Spoiled noble children shouldn't be outside at night.

"Nah. These guys are trying to rob me, is all. I've got it."

One of the robbers took offence to the laid-back comment, drawing his sword and preparing to stab the kid in the back.

With the ease of experience, the kid dodged the blow and brought down his elbow on the robber's wrist. When the man dropped his sword, the previously unarmed kid caught it.

He swung the blade experimentally, not bothering to hide his grin as he turned back towards Aveline.

"As I said, I've got this. I needed to work off some aggression anyways."

With those simple words, pandemonium broke out.

The robbers attacked, and Hawke's team wasn't going to stand idly by.

Hawke charged, swinging her two-handed sword with the momentum of her running.

Despite being handy with a sword, the kid wasn't wearing any armour. By the time Hawke had fought her way to his side, he was already sporting several nasty looking gashes.

Aveline didn't join them in the fray, opting instead to stand at the edge and stop anyone who tried to get close to Varric or Merrill.

They were doing quite well, so of course something would go wrong.

Like twenty more thugs appearing out of nowhere.

"Seriously?" The kid was looking incredulous.

Hawke silently agreed, even as she swore under her breath. Things were starting to get annoying.

Even untrained thugs can get in a few lucky hits when they're outnumbering you three-to-one.

A shield bashed into her, and Hawke fell to the ground. Before she could get up, weighted down as she was by her heavy armour, one of the swordsmen got close.

She could tell she wouldn't be able to intercept the swipe of his sword, but there was precious little she could try. Hawke braced herself as the edge of the blade drew closer.

Only to be blown away from her by a green bolt.

 _'A Spirit Bolt?'_ Hawke pulled herself to her feet. _'Well, what else could it have been?'_

Hawke pulled herself up again and sent a thankful nod at Merrill.

Merrill shook her head, eyes wide.

Hawke blinked. Merrill hadn't shot the Spirit Bolt?

Varric sent a meaningful glance towards the noble kid. The kid was doing a very poor job of looking innocent.

Aveline, Merrill and Varric dealt with the last of the would-be-robbers, while Hawke discreetly placed herself so that the kid couldn't just run off when the fight was over.

The glare he sent her told her she hadn't been discreet enough.

"Don't worry, kid. I'm not gonna turn you over to the templars for saving my life."

He didn't look convinced.

"We have a mage with us already," pointed Varric out with a smirk. "You'd think they would be enough for you to relax."

Merrill smiled and waved.

"So, what's your story? Ran away from home in order to avoid getting shipped off to a Circle?"

The kid nodded, radiating nervousness and confusion. Not that Hawke could blame him.

"I'm Hawke." She held out her hand.

He frowned at it for two seconds before shaking it. "Danny."

"These are my friends. Aveline, Varric and Merrill."

Danny nodded at each companion as they were introduced, still looking like he wanted to run off. Hawke frowned. A runaway noble apostate wouldn't last long in Kirkwall without help.

"I'm gathering some competent people, for an exhibition into the Deep Roads..."

"Hawke, no." Aveline frowned.

"Hawke, _yes_." Hawke grinned.

"What?" Danny narrowed his eyes.

"Hawke, he's just a kid."

"Yeah, and what better way to look after him than add him to our merry little group? Let's be real, that's why we're friends with Merrill." She mumbled the last part, so that Merrill wouldn't hear it.

"She's not wrong." Varric seemed to be enjoying himself, at least.

"He's a teenage apostate, probably without any training... He doesn't even carry a staff." Aveline didn't look convinced. "What's to say he won't fall to demons before the end of the week?"

"So well take him to Blondie, he's all about helping apostates."

Aveline snorted and muttered something about 'Abominations', clearly not impressed by Varric's idea.

"Does anyone care about what _I_ think?" Danny leaned against a wall, with what was probably fake casualness.

"No." Aveline's glare wasn't _quite_ iron, but it was close.

"Then it's decided." Hawke smirked smugly. "Anders is in charge of babysitting."

* * *

 **AN:** I wasn't originally planning on updating so soon, but a lot of reviewers seemed worried I wasn't going to continue this fic. This is me clarifying that I'm continuing this fic. I'll try to update once a week, but if updating two fics once a week becomes too much for me this will be my second priority to _Unspeakable._ I only have seven chapters left to write of that fic, so even if I put this on hold for a while it won't be for long.


	3. Sympathy for the Apostate

**Sympathy for the Apostate**

Danny was not amused.

Between being attacked by a bunch of thugs in a dark alley and being "saved" from said thugs, he had somehow ended up with Hawke (and friends) deciding all on their own that he needed their help.

He kind of _did,_ but that was beside the point.

Danny was still angry at himself for using his powers in front of them, but judging by their reactions it wasn't unheard of for people around these parts to throw blasts of energy at their enemies. As such, he let them believe he was a "mage", even though they seemed to think it wasn't an entirely good thing to be. However bad it was, it still had to be better than admitting that he wasn't entirely human.

(While he had somehow ended up in a place where horned giants known as Qunari, dwarves and elves were more-or-less accepted parts of society, he suspected ghosts would be less welcome.)

Hawke was nice, in a pushy 'I'm helping you now no matter what you say about it' kind of way.

If anything, her well-meaning meddling reminded Danny of Jazz. He tried to ignore it. Thinking about his family, about home, wouldn't help. He needed to focus on finding a way to get back there, not angst about how he'd been pulled away from them.

Still, he followed her as she lead him from the richer parts of Kirkwall into what had to be the slums.

Danny stepped over a guy who was laying face-down in the gutters. His hand was wrapped around a green bottle. "Is that guy dead?"

"I think he's just drunk." Varric didn't look overly concerned, if anything he seemed to find Danny's reaction amusing.

Of course, he had implied he thought that Danny was some sort of nobleman who'd never seen the world outside his parents' castle. (Danny was okay with everyone believing that. Considering his titles in the Ghost Zone, it wasn't even that far from the truth. Hopefully, being a sheltered noble would explain his lack of knowledge about daily life in the city.)

Danny glanced back at the man in the gutters.

"You can't worry about everyone, Softy." Varric took Danny's arm and pulled him along, sympathy in his crooked smile.

Danny nodded, but hat to bite his lip to stop himself from protesting. It wasn't like he _could_ stop himself from worrying about complete strangers. While it wasn't particularly practical or realistic, it was part of who he was... and besides, how different was that from what Varric and Hawke was doing? There didn't really seem to be anything in it for _them_ in helping Danny, no matter what Hawke said.

The three of them, Aveline and Merrill having gone their separate ways back in Hightown, made their way through the slums without getting attacked by any more robbers. Danny suspected that if he'd come alone, that wouldn't have been the case. Hawke, tall and strong, with her big sword strapped across her back, was intimidating in a way scrawny Danny Fenton wasn't.

(Though, to be fair, it wasn't like any of his enemies feared Danny _Phantom_ either.)

"Here we are." Hawke stopped in front of a set of closed doors.

"If you say so."

Hawke grinned at Danny's unenthusiastic response before tapping a rhythm on the door. Danny wasn't sure of whether it was a secret knock or Hawke just felt like it. Both seem equally likely.

The door rattled slightly before opening from within. A half-awake man poked out his head, giving them what could constitute as a glare, if only his eyes were open. "Hawke? What do you want?"

Hawke didn't bother waiting for an invitation, merely pushing him back inside as she barged in. Varric and Danny followed.

"Come in, come in." The half-awake man rolled his eyes, seeing as they were already inside.

"Sorry for intruding," said Danny, because it didn't seem like anyone else would.

Danny was grateful for the opportunity to leave the cold of the night behind him. He was shivering, and he could have sworn he'd seen his breath as mist in the air just before they'd entered. He was too tired to think about how he'd managed the chilly night if Hawke hadn't pulled him into a warm place.

The inside was a hospital of sorts. There was one big room, filled with empty beds, probably meant for patients, and a couple of crates laying about. It smelled of herbs, sweat and blood.

"Haaaaaawke, what's going on? It's the middle of the night."

As someone who was often woken up in the middle of the night, Danny could relate to the man's grouchiness. He also felt like apologising again and going away.

"Anders, Danny. Danny, Anders." Hawke waved back and forth between them.

Anders nodded in greeting, looking no less disgruntled. "That explains absolutely nothing."

"Danny's an apostate. Ran away from home in order to escape the Circle. I'm sure you can relate?" Hawke raised her eyebrows repeatedly.

"We've sort of adopted him." Varric grinned at Danny's glare. "Into the group, I mean."

"You can't just take in every stray you come across." Anders rolled his eyes.

Danny wondered how often these sort of things happened to them.

"I don't take in _every_ stray, just the ones who can fight," protested Hawke.

"You do it too," added Varric.

"The difference is, the ones I take in are _cats._ "

"So you're not gonna help this young, helpless mage?" Hawke put her arm around Danny's shoulder and pulled him close. He elbowed her in the gut, but since she was wearing armour that didn't do much difference.

"Of course I am. I just want to complain while I do it."

"Fair enough."

"You're not a blood mage, are you?" Anders turned fully towards Danny, losing all his previous silliness.

While Danny had no idea what a "blood mage" was, he felt safe in the fact that the title wouldn't apply to him. What with him not being a _mage_ and all.

"No, and that won't change."

His confident tone must have been assuring, because Anders nodded solemnly.

"Well, I guess that's settled." Varric seemed smug, in a way that reminded Danny uncomfortably of Vlad when he'd tricked someone. "I have places to be, people to see, booze to drink."

Anders rolled his eyes as Varric and Hawke left.

His gaze was soft when it returned to Danny. "Just take any bed, and we'll work things out in the morning."

Danny managed a tired smile. "Thanks."

* * *

Morning came much too quickly.

For a moment, Danny thought he was in his bed at home.

He shifted, and the illusion was shattered as his groggy mind realised that the lighting was all wrong, not to mention that his own bed was much more comfortable.

As soon as he noticed it, everything flooded back. The portal, the mass sacrifice in _Danny's honour..._

He blinked away the last of his sleepiness and yawned widely, all while banishing all his thoughts on how he'd ended up in Kirkwall. He still felt a big groggy. It had been a long time since he'd slept the whole night.

"Ah, you're awake."

Danny turned towards the sound. The guy from last night, Anders, was grinding herbs in a mortar. Making medicine?

In the light of day, he looked much more approachable than he had last night. He was blonde, at least ten years Danny's senior, and he also wore a coat with feathers on the shoulders. That was apparently _a thing._

"Morning," Danny waved and stretched. He'd fallen asleep fully clothed, so while his clothes were wrinkly, he didn't have to worry about modesty.

Anders threw him an apple, which Danny caught without really looking.

"Here, breakfast."

"Thanks, but you don't have to look after me. I know Hawke bullied you into it. I was _there_ when she did it, remember?" Despite his protests, Danny took a big bite out of the apple.

"Don't worry about it, helping apostates is what I do."

Danny squirmed, trying to hide his discomfort. "Yeah, about that... I'm a foreigner, I think my country has a different word for that. What's an apostate?"

"A mage who lives free of the Circle."

"And what's the Circle?"

"A mage prison, run by the templars and the Chantry." Anders' voice contains no small amounts of righteous anger.

"... And what's the Chantry?"

Anders brain apparently caught up with his mouth, because his eyes widened to comical levels.

Danny felt awkward under the scrutinising look.

"People don't worship Andraste where you're from, do they?"

"Nope."

Anders shook his head. "So what are you doing in Kirkwall?"

"I'm looking for something. As soon as I find it I'll go home, but I'm not sure it's even _in_ Kirkwall, so it might take a while."

Anders' eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What are you looking for?"

Danny looked away. "You wouldn't believe me, even if I _could_ tell you."

"Not really inspiring a lot of confidence there, kid."

"Sorry, but I'm not your responsibility. You don't have to look after me."

Anders snorted. "You're what, thirteen?"

"Sixteen," grumbled Danny.

"Sixteen. That's way too young to run around Kirkwall on your own."

"I can handle myself."

"You don't even know who the templars are! They'll find out you're a mage and capture you!"

"It's not like I go around using my powers in public!"

"Then how did Hawke find out!?"

"I had to save her life! I kind of think that's more important than keeping my secret!"

"You're staying with me as long as you're in Kirkwall, and that's final!"

"Fine! Thank you for your hospitality!" Danny was impressed with himself for managing thanking the guy while still sounding angry. Of course, he couldn't keep up the frown as he dissolved into giggles. "Sorry, that just got too weird."

Anders snorted and rolled his eyes, returning to his herbs.

Danny let him be long enough to finish eating the apple.

"Whatcha doing?"

"I'm making Healing Potions... Since I'm a Healer. This is my clinic." Anders made a sweeping gesture at the room.

"Cool."

"If you're gonna stay here, I'd appreciate it if you helped out from time to time."

"Sure, I mean. I don't know anything about herbs, but I'm a master at stitching up wounds and applying bandages."

"You don't know any healing magic?"

"That sounds super useful, but no."

Something twinkled in Anders' eyes. "Wanna learn?"

Danny almost gave an enthusiastic 'yes', when he remembered that he wasn't _really_ a mage. He deflated. "Thanks, but I don't think I'd be able to."

Anders nodded, like it wasn't an unexpected answer. "The Creation school of magic is the most difficult one. What types of spells do you usually cast?"

"Ice?"

 _'Please be something that mages can do. Please be something that mages can do.'_

"Elementalism, huh?" Anders' smile was easy-going. "I've been known to throw lightning at fools myself."

Danny breathed a sigh of relief. Pretending to be a mage was more exhausting than he'd anticipated.

"I won't push it, but if you want to learn Healing, I'd be more than willing to teach you. It would really help out to have another Healer at the clinic."

Danny found himself wishing that he wasn't just _pretending_ to be a mage, if only so he could learn how to heal.

* * *

 **AN:** Though Danny's powers are similar to those of a mage, he's not one. He's using ghost powers to pretend, nothing else. He won't suddenly gain new abilities he wouldn't have been able to learn in DP canon.


	4. A Long Con

**A Long Con**

"Morning, Softy."

Danny frowned at the nickname, but still inclined his head in greeting at Varric. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. I thought I'd show you around town."

"I don't need babysitting."

"Don't think of it as babysitting. Think of it as me wanting company." Varric's smile was disarming.

Danny shrugged and followed Varric out of the clinic. The morning air was sharp and cold, tasting of sea salt and filth. "You're some sort of con-artist, aren't you?"

"What makes you think that?"

"The way you talk, and how you and Hawke manipulated Anders to take me in yesterday. You remind me of... my uncle." He hoped Varric didn't notice his hesitation at the title. "Nobody is that charming naturally."

Still, Varric seemed much more genuine than Vlad. When Vlad smiled, it never quite reached his eyes.

Varric smirked at the comment, and his eyes glowed with mirth. "I'm a storyteller and a merchant."

"That makes sense, I guess." Danny found himself oddly disappointed.

"Not exciting enough for you?"

Danny gave a non-committing hum.

"Well, as a storyteller I'd be delighted to make up some lie for you, if you find the truth that boring." Varric seemed excited at the opportunity. "I can be an assassin sent by the Carta to take out the Viscount, or something."

Danny smiled. "I'm good, thanks. My life is interesting enough as it is."

The walked in companionable silence for a while before Varric gave Danny a scrutinising look. "So, your uncle's a conman?"

"A politician. Same thing."

Varric barked out a short laugh. "You're not wrong."

Soon they left the horrible slums that was Kirkwall's Darktown, and entered the less horrible slums that was Lowtown.

Danny was completely lost, but Varric seemed to know where he was going. so it was only a matter of not falling behind. Considering that Varric was a dwarf, and therefore had really short legs, it wasn't a difficult task.

The turned a corner and went down some stairs, and Danny found himself facing a gigantic tree.

"Wow." The word came out as a breathless whisper. He craned his head to try to see the sky through the rich foliage, but the tree was too tall to see anything but flashes of light as the leaves shifted in the wind. "I didn't think there would be something like this in the middle of the city."

"It's some elfish thing, I think every Alienage has one." Varric hadn't stopped to admire the giant plant.

Danny was about to ask what they were doing there when Varric knocked on a door. It was a polite rasp, nothing like the elaborate rhythm Hawke had created when she woke up Anders the night before.

"Coming!" A light voice came from behind the door, muffled but audible.

Danny shot Varric a quizzical look.

Varric grinned.

The door was opened, revealing a somewhat familiar face.

"Merrill, right?"

She nodded, a soft smile on her lips. Despite the fact that she had to be at least a decade older than Danny, she _felt_ younger than him. Maybe it was her frail build and large eyes, or maybe it was due to how she radiated naïveté.

In light of that, it was a bit disconcerting that she was taller than him.

The last night, due to a combination of darkness and distance, he hadn't noticed the tattoos on her face. Simple brown lines, in an abstract pattern that reminded him vaguely of a tree. Danny tried not to stare.

"Morning, Daisy." Varric stepped aside so that Merrill could exit.

"Good morning Varric, Danny."

"Not that I mind the extra company, but what exactly are we doing?" Danny put his hands behind his head, leaning into them as he once more looked up at the enormous tree.

* * *

As a scoundrel himself, Varric could tell when somebody was hiding something.

Danny was hiding _a lot._

While the kid was an apostate, and therefore bound to hide at least that much from the world, there was something more to it than that.

Varric was planning on finding out what.

So, what did he know about Danny?

He was dressed as a noble, but only seemed to own the one coat. That implied he'd left home with nothing but the clothes on his back. Because his magic had been discovered? It was possible.

He wasn't from Kirkwall. That much was immediately obvious. Why somebody who was trying to _avoid_ the Circle came to Kirkwall was a mystery in and of itself. Maybe the kid had just gotten on a boat and not really checked to see where he'd been going.

He knew how to use a sword. That implied his family were the more active nobles, like the ones in Ferelden, rather than the ones in places like the Free Marches or Orlais.

The way the kid shied away from attention was also telling. A first son of a noble family would get lots of training and practice in handling people. Danny behaved more as a forgotten second son, the way his eyes sparkled at any positive attention thrown his way. Odds were, his parents didn't pay him much attention. Varric could relate, but then again he preferred working from the shadows.

Which was what he was doing by involving Merrill, applying a little misdirection in order to hide while achieving his goal. It was needed, since Danny already seemed to suspect Varric of something. Merrill wasn't sneaky, but her innocent curiosity served its own use in getting people to open up.

"So," asked Danny as he turned towards Merrill. "Why are you joining us on this little tour of Kirkwall?"

She smiled a disarming smile. "I'm also new to town. I still don't know my way around. I have a ball of twine somewhere... Varric gave it to me so I'd find my way home..."

Varric tuned Merrill out as she started rambling.

* * *

"I've never seen a mage with a sword before." Merrill smiled, looking genuinely curious. "There are some stories about ancient elves mixing magic and swordplay, but that was at the time of Arlathan."

"Is that so?" Danny's fingers curled around the stolen sword at his side. He'd stolen a belt from one of the thugs in order to hang it on his hip.

They had walked around what felt like all of Kirkwall, going from the Lowtown market to the Hightown market to the docks. The winds coming in from the ocean was fresh and bitingly cold. The thick cloud cover meant there was no sun to warm them, but nobody seemed to be bothered by it. Danny had been keeping an eye out, so to speak, but his Ghost Sense hadn't gone off all day.

"Yes. Aveline's been trying to teach me how to use a sword, but I think the ancient elves must have used magic to make themselves stronger or something because I can barely lift a one-hand sword if I use both hands. Who taught you?"

Danny blinked at the wave of chatter, only registering that she'd asked him a question after a few seconds of silence.

He thought another second before answering. In Kirkwall, knowing how to use a sword wasn't something all that odd. Besides, they already knew about it, so why not?

"There's a story to it."

Varric stopped pretending that he wasn't listening, and flashed Danny a big grin.

Danny smiled back. "Okay, so I was visiting my friend Dora's castle. That is, erm, Princess Dorathea."

Merrill was hanging onto his every word, which gave him confidence to continue.

"And Dora decided to hold a tournament in my honour."

Varric gave a low whistle and mumbled "nobles" under his breath.

"So I figured, it might be fun to join in? Except I knew nothing about swordplay and... well, it was embarrassing and awkward and Dora ended up ordering me to learn, because there was no way one of _her_ knights would be allowed to _not_ know how to fight with a sword." The ending came out a bit too rushed, because he could feel the blush creeping up on his cheeks. Nobody had outright laughed at him, because he was 'sir Phantom', but the entire day had been mortifying.

"One of her knights?" Of course Varric noticed that part.

"Dora knighted me. She's a princess, she can do that." Danny crossed his arms over his chest and avoided eye contact.

"Why would she knight you if you couldn't use a sword?" Merrill's question was innocent enough, but Danny didn't have a good answer prepared. Which meant he accidentally blurted out the truth.

"I helped her usurp the throne from her brother. It was as thanks."

"Oh?"

"He wasn't a very good ruler. Or person."

Varric guffawed. Merrill tilted her head in thought.

"Where did you say you were from again?" Varric had a calculating look in his eyes.

"I didn't."

* * *

 **AN** : A lot of the things Arcane Warriors can do in DA:O are things that Danny can do with his ghost powers.


	5. Justice

**AN:** I've got a lot of readers who haven't played Dragon Age, and as cool as it is that you're still willing to read this... This is your official _**SPOILER WARNING.**_ I'm going to spoil pretty much the **entirety** of Dragon Age II, and events leading up to it. (Some non-vital Inquisition spoilers might happen in the last chapters of this fic, I'm not 100% decided on that yet.)

* * *

 **Justice**

The sun was barely setting when their impromptu tour of the city reached its end. Varric, Merrill and Danny were back outside Anders' clinic in Darktown.

Danny was feeling surprisingly invigorated. It had been ages since he'd been able to just kick back and enjoy the moment in Amity Park. When he got home, he promised himself to take a day off to hang out with Sam and Tucker.

"Might as well go inside and say 'hi' to Blondie, while we're here." Varric grinned.

Merrill fidgeted. "I'm not sure, I don't think he likes me very much."

Varric didn't deny that, which told Danny that Anders probably _hated_ Merrill. That was both worrying and confusing. Merrill was too sweet to hate.

Varric went and opened the door anyway, gesturing them inside.

Feeling awkward, in no small part due to Merrill's unease, Danny stepped inside the clinic again.

Only to breathe out a very visible cloud of cold air.

 _'My Ghost Sense!?'_

Danny's hand closed around the handle of his sword, and all his muscles tightened as he looked around for the offending ghost.

Maybe he could catch it and make it tell him how to get home.

The hope burned inside him, filled him with purpose.

Both Merrill and Varric noticed Danny's reaction. Merrill's hands tightened around her staff, while Varric pulled out his crossbow.

Anders looked very baffled when he walked in on the scene.

The almost comical expression changed into fear as Danny aimed his sword at Anders' throat.

"I'd suggest you stop overshadowing my fri-... acquaintance right this second." Danny growled out the words, his hand not wavering.

"What?" Anders looked from him to the sword in confusion. "Overshadow?"

"Don't play dumb with me, I can _Sense_ you. Stop. Possessing. My. Acquaintance. He's been kind to me and I won't repay him by letting somebody run off with his body."

Anders' eyes widened in realisation. "Ooooh... A little help here, Varric?"

Varric chuckled, which completely ruined the mood. "Softy, relax."

 _'I already hate that nickname.'_

Still, Varric's lack of reaction to his friend being possessed was enough for Danny to lower his weapon. He still kept his eyes on Anders, though.

"Explain." Danny sounded every bit the nobleman he was pretending to be as he made the demand.

"Well, you see..." Anders suddenly looked bashful. "I was with the Wardens in Amaranthine, where I became friends with a spirit of justice. He was trapped outside of the Fade and-"

"The Fade?" Danny raised and eyebrow and titled his head.

"Do they call it something else where you're from?"

"Probably."

"The Fade, the Beyond, the Void. I think the Qunari call it the Land of the Dead. The realm of demons and spirits. Green skies and floating islands. Ring any bells?"

Danny blinked.

That... was without a doubt the Ghost Zone. But what was the deal with 'demons'? Was it just like when Danny had gone back to the Salem Witch Trials, where they called any ghost a demon? The Zone didn't have any non-ectoplasmic creatures, so it was definitely some sort of ghost he was talking about.

Figuring that the Ghost Zone was too futuristic a name, Danny went for the title Frostbite used.

"The Infinite Realms."

Anders nodded, seemingly filing away the fact for later use. "As I was saying, Justice was trapped on this side of the Veil that separates us from the Fade."

Danny made a mental note to look up as much information as he could about this 'Veil' thing.

"To continue existing, Justice needed a host. I volunteered, he was going to help me bring justice to the mages..."

 _'Why would he_ need _a host? Was he lying, or is he just that weak? Or is it because of that Veil thing? Aside from that...'_

"I see where this is going." Danny crossed his arms over his chest, feeling old.

"You do?"

"Yes. _Justice_ is a hard Obsession to fulfill. Especially in a place like this, with what you've told me of the Circle..."

For the first time since they'd entered, Merrill made her presence known. "Obsession?"

Anders and Varric looked equally questioning.

"You share your body and you don't _know..._ Okay." Danny ran his fingers through his hair, half wanting to tear it out. "An Obsession is the thing that drives a gh- spirit... or a demon, I guess. It's the one thing that matters most to them, the thing that drives them. If a spirit is denied their Obsession, things turn ugly."

"I see." Anders nodded to himself, looking troubled. "That would explain it..."

"How do you know all that?" Varric had a glint in his eye that Danny didn't care for. "For that matter, how did you sense Justice to begin with?"

"It's... just something I can do. As a mage. Because I am a mage." Danny avoided eye contact. "It's a common skill in my home. I can sense spirits... and demons, I guess."

"Right." Varric didn't look convinced. "Like a Grey Warden, but with demons instead of darkspawn?"

"Sure?" Danny nodded hesitantly, not having the slightest idea what any of that meant.

Getting a sudden burst of inspiration, Danny turned towards Anders again. "You said he got trapped outside the Fade... Couldn't you find him a way back? Surely there are places where the Veil is weaker... right?"

"Yes."

Even though Danny had already known it to be true, considering how he himself had ended up in Kirkwall, it was very reassuring to know that it was acknowledged fact. If people knew about it, it would be easier to find a way home.

"It seems we use a lot of different names for these things back in my country... You wouldn't happen to have any books about the Fade, would you?"

Anders looked happy at the opportunity to change the subject, but he couldn't stop himself from asking one last question. "So... any reactions?"

"To what?"

"Me being an Abomination, sharing my body with a spirit."

"I won't judge you for trying to help a friend..." Danny hesitated, biting on his lip.

 _'It's not like I've never helped a ghost... and it's not like all of us are dangerous... It depends on how much justice can be found in this city... Besides, if someone whose Obsession is_ justice _ends up deprived of it... It's not like he'll hurt someone who don't deserve it, right? He'll go after corrupt cops or something. He's not like the Box Ghost, who doesn't care who he hurts to fulfill his Obsession... It's not_ justice _to hurt the innocent.'_

"I don't think you did the wrong thing. Maybe. Could I talk to him?"

Anders paused, thinking it over. He didn't seem exited about the idea.

"I just wanna meet my second room mate." Danny downplayed it, hoping it would be enough to calm Anders.

Looking like he was being forced to swallow a very bitter pill, Anders nodded and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, they were glowing.

The glow was, oddly enough, blue. However, there didn't seem to be any ice powers in use, and the glow was more electric that any Danny had seen in the Far Frozen.

"Greetings, little one. What do you want with me?"

It occurred to Danny that he probably should have thought of something to say _before_ contacting the spirit possessing his frie- acquaintance.

He considered revealing his own nature to the spirit, but since Anders was aware of the possession there was no way to know whether he'd remember what Justice saw.

"I just... felt I needed to say hi." Danny fidgeted, and his fingers wouldn't stay still. "And to ask you... why can't you survive without a host? It shouldn't be hard. If you're lying to Anders in order to possess him..."

Justice looked offended.

That was a good sign. Probably.

"I am not like demons, who can replenish themselves on the negative emotions of humans. Away from the Fade..."

"I understand." Danny relaxed. That wasn't something he needed to worry about, as a Halfa. His human half provided all the energy he needed. "Thank you."

Justice nodded, and when Danny opened his mouth to say something else, it was Anders who looked back at him.

"I guess this is our cue to leave, Daisy. Bye Blondie, Softy."

"Good night, Varric." Anders nodded, completely ignoring Merrill.

Danny waved at them both, giving the girl a sympathetic smile.

He waited until they had left before voicing his concerns. "Why are you so rude to Merrill?"

Anders' mouth set, and his eyes hardened. "She's a blood mage."

 _'I should probably find out what that means.'_

Whatever blood magic was, it couldn't be _that_ bad. At least, Varric didn't treat Merrill like some dangerous serial killer or something. And Varric would know what blood magic was, so his opinion counted.

"She's very nice, actually."

"She's consorted with demons!"

 _'You're possessed by a spirit. If I'm right, there's_ _no difference between spirits and demons.'_

But he couldn't say that. Not because he wouldn't be able to explain how he knew it, but because Anders wouldn't ever accept it as the truth.

Danny let the subject drop, not wanting to get kicked out of the clinic.

"So, about that book?"


	6. Darkly Dreaming Danny

**Darkly Dreaming Danny**

Danny dreamt of the Ghost Zone.

He'd been having the same dream since he first came to Kirkwall, and it was beginning to frustrate him. Because there it was, in full green glory, tantalizingly close, yet he wasn't _really_ there.

Or at least he thought so. It was disorienting, but his core couldn't seem to make up its mind whether he was there or not. It was humming excitedly, but he didn't _feel_ right. Like there was a thin film of plastic between him and the Ghost Zone. Further, trying to _go ghost_ did absolutely nothing.

As such, he spent his time sitting on one of the floating islands and looking at the familiar green sky. His island was a small thing, a few spindly trees and some dry grass and nothing more.

In the sky hung the only part of the Zone that he recognized, Pariah's Keep. It was so close he could make out individual spires on the castle, but since he couldn't fly it might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy.

Danny sighed, and the breath came out visible and cold. Before he could really process it, he got to his feet and crunched into a defensive position.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." A few steps away from him was a seemingly human man, dressed in the odd robes that seemed to be fashionable in Kirkwall. The man's shoulders were hunched, and his hands were clasped in front of him. All in all, he didn't look like a threat.

 _'Except that he's a ghost. He still looks like a normal person, so either he's hiding his appearance or he hasn't been dead very long.'_

"What do you want?" Danny narrowed his eyes, carefully widening the distance between them.

"I was just curious." The strange man raised his hands to show he wasn't armed. "It's rare to find someone who's aware of the Fade while asleep."

 _'He says that like... like this isn't just a dream.'_

Danny frowned, trying to figure out how to ask questions without making it obvious he had no idea what was going on.

 _'On the other hand, I_ am _dreaming. He's probably just a figment of my imagination. And asking direct questions about things people think you're_ supposed _to know will trip them up.'_

"What are you talking about?"

"It is rare even for a mage to not be drawn into an illusion created by a demon, but you remain outside it all, on this small unclaimed island."

Danny crossed his arms over his chest. "Are you telling me this is real?"

The man startled, not able to hide his surprise. "You didn't know?"

"So it _is_ real." Danny eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? No wonder everything feels off."

"Didn't your Circle teach you this?"

Danny shrugged. "I'm an Apostate. Or so they say. Feel free to imagine that I grew up all alone in the forest."

Something hungry passed before the strangers eyes, completely at odds with his submissive body language.

Danny's jaw clenched, but he was able to stop himself from tensing in reaction to the look. For the time being, it was probably better to play ignorant.

"Oh, where _are_ my manners? I'm... Well, at this point I've been here so long that my name doesn't matter anymore. You may call me Mouse."

 _'So he's probably not human-looking because he just died, then.'_ Danny barely stopped himself from frowning. _'Well, some ghosts just_ prefer _to look more human. Like Johnny and Kitty. He could be one of those. Or he could be trying to trick me.'_

"Danny. Pleasure."

There was a couple of seconds of silence where Danny was mostly hoping Mouse would go away.

No such luck.

"You know, there's probably a reason all the gh- spirits are staying away from this place." Danny smiled, but it was more of a baring of teeth than anything else. "Don't you think?"

Mouse shrugged. "I'm just glad for a place to hide, away from the demons."

"Hide, huh?" Danny grew wistful. "What good does that do?"

"It's all I can do. I'm not strong. I'm just... a mouse." Mouse didn't seem ashamed of it, and as if to demonstrate he turned into a mouse and back again. The process was quick and involved a lot of glowing.

Danny stared at the casual shape-shifting. "Impressive."

"It's good for hiding, at least."

"Can't you take any other forms, though? A wolf or something could be useful."

Mouse looked defeated. "I'd have to learn the form somehow..."

"How hard could it be? I mean, you already learned how to turn into a mouse and a human..."

Mouse stiffened. "Turn into a human?"

Danny tensed. He had _not_ meant to reveal that he knew that. Oh, well. It might be the quickest way to find out Mouse's intentions. "You're not one. I can tell."

Mouse smiled and straightened his spine until he stood tall, looking markedly different from his previous scared mask. Slowly, much slower than when he'd turned into a mouse, he started to grow. Soon, he was more than twice Danny's height. Mouse's skin turned purple, and his face grew several more sets of pitch black eyes. "And here I thought you knew nothing of the Fade."

 _'Show-off.'_

"I know plenty of the Fade." Danny snorted, letting the ecto-energy he could sense flood into his hand. The green blast lit up, flaring before steadying. He went the extra mile and let his eyes glow with power. "I'm just not used to being on this side of the Veil."

"Ah, I see. You're not human. I should have realised." Mouse sounded disappointed, like he had just been about to take a big bite of an apple, only to discover it was made of wax.

"It's an easy mistake to make, considering how I'm actively pretending to be one," deadpanned Danny. "So, what did you _really_ want with me?"

 _'It's probably best if he doesn't realise that I_ _am human, even if I'm only halfway there.'_

"As I said, I was curious." Mouse's smile was melancholic, but still reminded Danny of a cat toying with its prey. "I was hoping you'd be someone worth possessing... Why would a spirit like you pretend to be human?"

Danny let his ecto-blast dissipate, since the giant purple ghost hadn't made any show of actually being hostile after realising that Danny wasn't human. "To avoid templars, they're not huge fans of the whole spirit-thing. I didn't even mean to leave the Fade! Some guy used magic to summon me to this weird place, can you imagine!?"

It felt nice to finally be able to complain about it.

Mouse shrunk back into his human guise, so Danny didn't need to crane his head to look at him anymore.

"And then he had the gall to order me to kill people for him!"

Mouse nodded with sympathy. Danny didn't bother to try to see whether it was faked or not.

"I just want to get back home, you know? Like, physically. I can tell this isn't _really_ real." Danny ranted, letting his guard down slightly to pace back and forth across the island.

"I see. Well, I can't say I know _how._ Summoning someone from the Fade is one thing, blood mages do that every once in a while... but nobody's really put any effort into sending someone back." Now that he wasn't pretending to be a wimp, Mouse seemed confident in his knowledge.

"That's ridiculous!"

"Human priorities." Mouse shrugged, smiling smugly. "They don't tend to think things through. That's why someone like you or I can end up taking their body."

"Dude, you're a little bit too focused on the whole body-snatcher thing."

"You have your goals, I have mine."

Danny frowned and opened his mouth, only to close it without saying anything.

 _'There is so much wrong with this conversation, I don't even know where to start. Still, it's not like I can fight while I'm not even here...'_

"Fine, whatever. Do you know anyone who might know about getting back into the Fade?"

 _'If I stay in Kirkwall any longer, my family's gonna worry about me.'_

Mouse shrugged. "There are always rumours, but nothing concrete. If there existed a rift in the Fade, I would have stepped through it already, rather than trying to fool a mortal."

Danny's shoulders dropped. "At this point, I'm willing to settle for rumours."

Mouse's smile widened. "I'll see what I can find. Maybe we can end up trading places, little spirit."

Danny stopped himself from making it obvious exactly what he felt about _that_ idea, keeping his face as neutral as he could.

"Maybe."

* * *

 **AN** : I feel like I'm stuck in the "introductory" part of this fic, where I do nothing but establish character relationships and explain stuff. As much as I look forward to getting to the actual plot, it's gonna be a while before we get there. (Danny hasn't even met all the DAII main characters yet!) At least this chapter has _some_ important plot-points. (Mouse will be back.)


	7. Equipment and Assistance

**AN:** This chapter is not an April Fools' joke. I doubt it'll read as one, but I figured I might as well make that abundantly clear.

* * *

 **Equipment and Assistance**

"Are you _sure_ you don't want to use a staff?"

"Yes, Anders, for the _hundredth_ _time._ " Danny scowled.

Hawke twirled the offending item like a baton. "But look how pretty it is."

Danny didn't need to fake his disbelief. The staff was simple, wooden, with leather wrapped around the handle. The leather was stained with what might have been dried blood, or possibly mud. It was in no way, shape or form pretty.

Danny leaned against one of the walls in the Clinic, trying to appear casual. Inside, he was close to panicking.

 _'If I try to use that thing, I'll definitely fail. Then everyone will realise that I'm not actually a mage.'_

Anders, Varric and Hawke had found the offending staff on one of their outings. Danny suspected it had been in the hands of a dead mage.

"I'm a trained knight. I use a sword. That's not up for debate." Danny crossed his arms over his chest.

"Ugh!" Hawke threw her arms into the air. "Varric, talk some sense into him."

"Softy..." Varric walked over to Danny and put a hand on his shoulder. Even as short a teenager as Danny was, the dwarf had a little trouble executing the manoeuvre.

"Varric, I'm not going to let you con me into doing this."

"But why not?"

 _'Because I'm not a mage.'_

"Because I'm a knight. I'm proud of that. Also, I'd rather not _advertise_ the whole Apostate thing. I don't get why you lot are so interested in me using that thing to begin with."

Varric gestured for Danny to come closer. Danny leaned in as Varric lowered his voice into a conspirational whisper. "People on the sidelines don't get hurt as often."

Danny blinked.

He straightened his back and looked from Hawke to Anders to Varric again.

"Oh. Oooooh!" Danny's cheeks turned red as he understood what was going on.

 _'They are_ worrying _about me. Where did_ that _come from? Is it just because they're older than me?'_

Jazz acted like that sometimes, so it did make sense, in a twisted way.

"Now he gets it." Varric smirked.

"I'm still not gonna use that thing, but thanks." Danny smiled.

"Then here, take this." Hawke produced a pile of boiled leather, seemingly from nowhere, and pushed it into Danny's chest. "If you won't stay out of the fray, you need to at least wear some armour."

"Sure. I'll wear it under my coat, or something."

"You're still keeping the coat?" Varric raised an eyebrow.

"It's got feathers on the shoulders. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever owned and I love it."

* * *

A week passed where Danny didn't make any progress on finding a way home.

It was frustrating, but trailing after Hawke helped distract him. She claimed she was only looking for ways to make money, but her methods included fighting bandits, picking up trash and returning lost trousers to their owners. (For a fee, but that just raised the question of who was willing to _pay_ to get back their lost pants. They weren't even particularly nice pants.)

Hawke was weird.

The entirety of Kirkwall was weird.

Danny missed Amity Park.

 _'By now, everyone will have noticed I'm gone. My parents must be worrying. Heck, they probably think I've been kidnapped by a ghost... I really hope they don't blame Phantom. Oh, who am I kidding? They're totally blaming Phantom.'_

Danny sighed and got up from his borrowed bed. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well spend his time wisely. He needed to find a way home, not lay around doing nothing.

The need to _do something_ was like electricity through his veins. It made it hard to lean back and think of nothing.

Anders was out with Hawke, and the Clinic was empty except for Danny, so he had to qualms against transforming and shooting out through the wall.

Danny couldn't help but smile as he replaced the stuffy air of the Clinic with the cold wind outside. He had missed flying, and he had missed assuming his ghost form.

He gained altitude and blinked out of visibility.

Kirkwall at night was incredibly different from Amity Park. The lack of electric street lights meant a lack of light pollution, and the stars were clearly visible even in the middle of the city.

Danny kept himself invisible as he flew away from populated areas. If he was going to use up some of his excess energy, he'd rather to it away from witnesses. And templars.

He found an abandoned stretch of coast, which was mostly just sand and weeds, and he landed there. Hopefully, the surrounding cliffs would keep him shielded from any curious eyes.

Not that he was worried, what kind of people went to the beach at night anyway?

 _'Aside from me, that is.'_

Danny settled into a seated position in the air, crossing his legs and leaning backwards.

 _'There aren't any natural portals around here.'_

Mouse had implied as much, and none of Danny's investigations had proved otherwise.

 _'I don't think I'm capable of building my own Ghost Portal. Especially not in a place that doesn't have electricity.'_

Not for the first time, Danny wished that he had paid more attention to his parents' rambling explanations of their work.

 _'It would probably be easier to learn how to make portals with my ghost powers, like Wulf does.'_

Theoretically, he _should_ be capable of learning that, since his evil future self had known how.

 _'Or maybe he got that from Plasmius.'_

Danny scowled, thinking like that would get him nowhere. He needed to go home, and if he had to learn an new ghost power from scratch to do it – so be it.

He waved his hand through the air, letting small amounts of green energy bleed off it. They slowly drifted without regard for the ocean breeze, before the embers burned out.

 _'This is gonna take a while.'_

At least he found a way to use up his excess energy.

* * *

Hawke was having fun.

Most people wouldn't consider running up and down the Wounded Coast in the dead of night to stop lyrium smugglers to be fun, but Hawke was an errant swordswoman with a weird sense of humour.

Not even Varric's complaints about nature, and how everything is better in the city, could put a hamper on her good mood.

"There's too much _green._ " Varric finished a long rant, but Hawke hadn't really been listening.

"It's in the middle of the night," sighed Anders. "Everything looks black, and very dark grey, to me."

Aveline gave an agreeing hum.

Hawke stifled a laugh as she saw a burst of light from up ahead. At first she thought it was lightning, but she got a good look at is as it repeated. It was a bright green tone. "Then what do you call that?"

"Magic," hissed Anders.

Aveline quickly caught up with Hawke, and the two of them walked side-by-side as they quietly approached the source of the light.

They walked around a boulder, and came face-to-face with the cause of the magic.

The weird spirit from the blood magic cult hovered in the air, his hands covered with green energy.

"Oh, it's just you."

The spirit turned around, glowing eyes wide. "Haw- Hi!"

He looked flustered, and the way he stuttered seemingly put Aveline at ease, because she shifted out of her battle-ready pose.

Hawke had almost forgotten how young the spirit looked. If he had been human, he would have been a teenager. However, since spirits didn't age, he was likely much older than Hawke.

Hawke gestured to Anders and Varric that it was safe, before leaning on her two-handed sword. "So, what are you still doing here?"

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing?" The spirit rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

Hawke shrugged, not bothered by the semi-aggressive tone.

"Well, to me it looks like you're trying to open a Rift in the Veil." Anders looked from Hawke to the spirit, obviously confused.

"This is the guy me and Aveline ran into, back with the cult with the human sacrifices." Hawke gestured vaguely towards the spirit.

"Which one?" quipped Varric.

"The one where the summoned spirit didn't try to murder us."

"Ah, that would explain the civilised conversation." Varric shouldered his crossbow with a smirk on his face. "Hi, I'm Varric. These are my associates, Hawke, Aveline and Anders."

The spirit looked surprised for a moment, before giving them a small wave. "I'm Phantom."

"So, Phantom," drawled Hawke. "What can I help you with?"

"Help-" Phantom tilted his head.

"It seems I help _everyone_ these days. Why not a spirit, too?"

"Really?" Phantom smiled with the innocence of his apparent age. "Thanks. I didn't... I didn't expect that."

Hawke grinned.

"I just want a way back into the Fade. You know, that doesn't involve killing people." Phantom scratched the back of his head.

"Hmm. That's a tall order."

"There was a Rift in Blackmarsh, but that's probably gone by now." Anders held up his hands in a defeated gesture.

Phantom sighed. "I'll look anyway, where's Blackmarsh?"

"In Ferelden."

"Where's that?"

"The other side of the sea." Anders gestured vaguely towards the nearby ocean.

Phantom sighed. "I'll look... later. When I can find a guide or something. I swear, this world is more confusing than the Fade."

Anders didn't look like he could believe that. Hawke snorted at his expression.

"Now that I'm on the job, we're sure to find you a way back." Hawke picked up her sword and put it over her shoulder.

"At least _one of us_ is confident." Phantom gave her a wry smile.

"Somebody has to be, since you're acting all defeated already."

"Am not! I'm just being... cautiously pessimistic. If I take too long, people are gonna be pissed at me when I get back." Phantom made a face.

"What, are you some big-shot or something?"

"Or something." Phantom's lips thinned. "If you find anything, meet me here after dark."

"Got'cha."


	8. Minors and Miners

**AN:** This chapter contains some dialogue taken directly from the game.

* * *

 **Minors and Miners**

"You two wanna go on a quest?" Hawke leaned against the wall of the Clinic, her arms crossed over her chest and a casual grin on her face.

Danny shrugged, while Anders nodded eagerly. It had been a slow day.

"What's taking so long?" Someone slipped through the open door.

She was wearing a short dress and minimal amounts of armour. As in, only one of her arms had any armour at all. There were a couple of wicked looking long daggers strapped to her back.

Danny, who had by necessity was good at picking up on how many hidden weapons people were carrying, counted nine hidden daggers. They were all small, nothing like the bazookas his parents had a habit of hiding on themselves, but they told him something about how dangerous she was.

"Danny, this is Isabela. Isabela, Danny." Hawke gestured lazily between them.

"Wait, since when do we allow _kids_ to come with us?" Isabela put a hand to her hip. "Hun, we're in a dangerous business."

"I'm also not comfortable with allowing Danny around Isabela." Anders frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Isabela glared at Anders.

"You're gonna corrupt him."

"He's _twelve._ I'mnot _that_ inappropriate."

"I'm sixteen!" Danny protested.

"Okay, break it up." Hawke pushed away from the wall to stand between her friends. "Isabela, Danny knows how to fight. It'll be fine."

Isabela pouted.

"Anders, Isabela knows how to behave herself. She just chooses not to most of the time. It'll be fine."

Anders didn't look convinced, but he nodded reluctantly.

"Danny... you're really sixteen?"

"I'm bound to hit a growth-spurt any day now."

"Keep telling yourself that, shorty."

* * *

After a while, all caves started to look the same.

Not that Danny was an expert on caves, by any measure. The previous caves were probably widely different from the mine they were currently in, in some regard he didn't know how to pick up on. Like moss, or something.

Danny really wished Hawke had dragged Varric along, because the nature-hating dwarf was sure to agree with him.

A bunch of miners had gone missing, and the owner was paying Hawke to fix the problem. Which meant they were currently walking through the abandoned mines.

 _'I wonder what happened to them... Maybe they found some gold, and one of them betrayed the others to keep it to himself...'_

Isabela was not nearly as fun as Varric, mostly because rather than telling obvious lies to the entire group, she had taken to whispering whatever she was thinking in Hawke's ear.

Judging by Hawke's incredulous expressions and scattered giggles, all of Isabela's comments were lewd.

Or maybe not, because Isabela turned towards Anders with a teasing smirk. "So, you and Justice adopted a kid together, huh?"

Anders sputtered. "We did not!"

"There's no shame in deciding you want to settle down."

"Oh please." Danny rolled his eyes. "My Mom could kick Anders' butt if he tried."

"Really?" Isabela's smirk grew. "She's a knight or something? Here I thought noble ladies sat around sewing all day."

"She's a... Well, you'd probably call her a templar. It's close enough."

Three sets of wide eyes stared at him.

"Dad too. Obviously, they don't know about all this." Danny gestured towards himself, meaning his ghostliness and knowing they'd interpret it to be about magic.

"I've changed my mind, I'm adopting you." Anders eyes grew resolute.

"No you're not. Mom would kick your butt. Dad would help her. Even my sister, who's not a templar, would shoot you. Pay attention." Danny waggled his finger at him.

Anders looked like he was about to protest, but he didn't get the opportunity to, since they found themselves under attack.

A group of lizards, as big as dogs, were feasting on the corpses of what could only be some of the miners they were looking for.

 _'Dinosaurs!?'_

"Dragons!?" Hawke was obviously stopping herself from grinning.

 _'That makes more sense.'_

Danny brought up his sword, and used his free hand to shoot a beam of ice at the closest dragonling.

"Destructive forces of nature! Coming up!" Anders brought his staff down, releasing an arch of lightning which jumped between the dragons, hitting one before moving on to the other.

Isabela seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, appearing behind the dragons only to fluidly move away from them before they could turn around and counter-attack.

Hawke was swinging her sword in wide arcs, hitting several small dragons with each swipe, when a larger one came at her.

It was taller than a horse, with large wings which it beat to create gusts of wind to knock them over.

Danny was barely able to pull himself to his feet in time to put up a shield to stop Hawke from getting burned by dragon-fire.

Hawke nodded a quick thanks before charging around the shield to bury her sword in the dragon's neck.

"And they say violence doesn't solve anything." Isabela smirked as the last dragon fell.

"Anybody need healing?" Anders shouldered his staff and gave them all a one-over.

"Stop your mothering. We're fine." Hawke snorted, recalling their earlier conversation.

"So... dragons?" Danny decided to bring them back to the real issue.

"I know. Cool, right?" Hawke grinned.

"They killed people." Anders glared at Hawke reproachfully.

"Oh, get the stick out of your ass." Isabela rolled her eyes. "What kind of example are you setting for your son?"

Danny groaned. "I'm not his son. Why does this type of thing keep happening to me?"

" _Keep_ happening to you? How many people try to adopt you?" Hawke raised an eyebrow.

"Just one other guy, but he's very persistent."

Hawke laughed and led them deeper into the cave.

There was no sign of any living miner, only more dragonlings. At least the small ones didn't know how to breathe fire yet. However, they were still creatures of fire and didn't like ice. Logical _and_ practical.

 _'I should probably not tell Dora about this.'_

"You think there's anybody still alive?" Danny frowned at the cave.

"Mayb-" Anders started to say, as they turned a corner and ran into a living miner.

The man was breathing heavily, like he'd been trying to make a run for it. As he saw them, his eyes widened. "Praise Andraste you came along. Them dragons would have sniffed me out for certain."

"Slow down. Tell me what happened here." Hawke put on a calm face.

"I'll tell you what I can, but be a friend and keep your voice down. There's another dragon close by."

"Where'd the dragons come from?" Hawke was hiding her interest poorly.

"We was mining a new tunnel when the wall collapsed, and dragons came through! It was a bloody slaughter!" The man scowled. "Scared out of my wits, I ran like my ass was on fire – it probably was. Only I went the wrong way. Ended up trapped here."

"We cleared out all the dragons, so you can get out of here." Danny gestured towards the way they had come.

"Don't have to tell me twice. You should leave, too, but don't go that way. There's this huge dragon!"

They took a minute's pause, as the man escaped, before Hawke grinned again.

"I'm guessing we're gonna fight this 'huge dragon'?"

"Oh, we're _definitely_ fighting the huge dragon. Dragons are awesome, I don't care what certain killjoys say." Hawke glared in Anders' general direction.

 _'I wonder how big a 'huge' dragon is.'_

They steeled themselves before going the direction they'd been told to avoid.

The cave led outside, to a small platform. The open air smelled wonderful after the stuffiness and corpses of the mine.

They had a moment to take in the scenery, before the 'huge' dragon swooped down.

Compared to Dora or Aragon, it wasn't all that huge.

By any other standards, however...

 _'And I can't exactly go ghost here.'_

Hawke charged with an inarticulate shout, earning the dragon's attention. That was probably a good thing, considering how she was the only one of them wearing full armour. The boiled leather under Danny's coat seemed rather pointless.

Anders and Isabela started running, to flank the beast.

Danny considered joining them, when the dragon started breathing fire. Without thinking, he _acted,_ putting a glowing green shield between himself, Hawke and the flames.

The dragon stopped, out of breath, and Danny took the opportunity to throw ecto-blasts at its eyes.

 _'Let's see you try to hit us, when you can't see!'_

For some reason, that made the dragon angry.

It flapped its large wings, which created more than the mere gusts its smaller brethren had managed.

Danny and Hawke were pushed away, hitting the side of the mountain.

"Ouch."

He forced himself to his feet.

Hawke was bleeding, but still concious.

"You need to chill." Danny concentrated, let the cold energy build up, before letting it go.

The dragon screamed as it was encased in ice.

Anders didn't waste the opportunity, and soon Hawke was surrounded by the light blue glow of healing.

Danny adjusted his grip on his sword, before running over and hitting the ice as hard as he could.

Unluckily, this didn't shatter the dragon. It only served to free it.

Luckily, nobody was close enough to notice if Danny used some intangibility to phase his sword under the dragon's hard scales.

He had to use all the strength he could muster in human form to pull it out, covering himself with blood.

 _'Must have hit an artery. Good.'_

The dragon screamed one last time, and Isabela quickly moved in to bury her daggers in the vulnerable spot Danny had created.

"That was amazing!" Hawke was grinning from ear to ear.

"No."

"Nope."

"It really wasn't."

* * *

 **AN** : Considering how the _actual_ plot of this fic deals with the mage/templar and spirit/demon parts of Dragon Age, this chapter stands out a bit from where I'm going with this story. It's sort of filler, except I managed to sneak in some important stuff. (Like Danny's parents being "templars" and the introduction of Isabela, who just wants to tell a lot of dirty jokes. I'm not sure what to do with her around kids, so don't expect to see a lot of her.)


	9. Personhood

**AN:** Thanks goes to the guest reviewer who told me I got things mixed up when it came to Danny's age. I've gone back and fixed it. He's supposed to be sixteen in all the chapters. (Well, so far. He's gonna be stuck in Kirkwall for a while. The plot of Dragon Age II takes place over several years, not to mention Inquisition.)

* * *

 **Personhood  
**

Staying at the Clinic meant making himself useful. While magical healing was beyond Danny's capabilities, he had _a lot_ of experience with the normal, non-magical version.

Anders' presence meant Danny didn't have to literally stitch someone up, but he dealt with minor injuries when there were too many people, and the preparation of herbal poultices. The latter of which Anders had taught him. Even if Danny had done stuff like that back home, Amity Park didn't have elfroot or lifestone.

 _'Or maybe we do. I wouldn't know.'_

Which was why Danny found himself grinding herbs and adding just enough distillation agent to make a poultice. It reminded him of Casper High's chemistry lessons, which he hadn't been allowed to participate in since his laps in control over his intangibility had left him with the reputation of being hopelessly clumsy.

 _'I'm missing so much school right now...'_

At least in Amity Park, he'd manage to go to a few classes in between ghost fighting. He had been working hard so that he wouldn't be forced to retake a year, and all of that was going up in smoke.

 _'There's nothing I can do about that now... Think of something else.'_

"Hey, Anders." Danny put down his flasks. "What are you writing?"

Anders turned a rather horrid shade of red in embarrassment. "Ah, well. It's my manifesto."

If Danny hadn't been curious before, he was now. "Your manifesto?"

"It's about mage rights."

"Oh."

"How- How are mages treated where you come from? It might give me some inspiration." They way Anders' eyes burned, he was looking for more than inspiration – he was looking for _hope._

Hope that Danny couldn't give him.

There weren't any mages in Amity Park, though he couldn't admit that. Not without revealing his true identity.

Still, considering how he'd lied and claimed to be a mage himself, with his parents being something like templars, the easiest thing would be to answer the question in regard to _ghosts._

"Like we're not even people." Danny couldn't stop the scowl that grew across his face, or the way his voice became louder as he continued speaking. "Just because we're powerful, and _some_ of us are use those powers to cause trouble, they think all of us are evil."

Anders sighed. "So like here, then."

"I- I'm trying to change things, back home. Make people see us as, well, people."

"We shouldn't have to prove our humanity."

 _'No, you shouldn't. Because you_ are _human. Anyone can see that. It makes more sense for me to have to prove myself.'_

Again, not something he could tell Anders.

Honestly, it was more than a little worrying that there were parallels between how ghosts were treated compared to mages. Mages were obviously people, there was no way to believe they didn't have feelings. Right?

There was an uneasy silence, as both of them sat with their own thoughts.

The atmosphere was mercifully shattered as Hawke barged into the Clinic, Varric in tow.

"Let's go, we need to find some missing templar recruits."

Anders gave Hawke a measured look. "You'd turn to two apostates for that kind of job?"

"Sure." Hawke shrugged. "It's under control, we'll be discreet. They won't arrest you or anything."

"That wasn't what I meant." There was something dark in Anders' eyes, in the way his jaw clenched.

"I'll do it." Danny stood up and gave Anders a small, strained smile. "They're still people, like us."

Anders looked like he had to stop himself from disagreeing on that, and was probably doing so purely because of Danny's parents supposed profession. "Fine."

"We've tracked them to Darktown, somewhere in the old mines." Hawke grinned and led them out of the Clinic.

"This place used to be a mine? That... explains a lot." Danny looked around, noticing the old tracks used to pull carts of whatever they had been mining.

"Mines and sewers, home sweet home." Anders joined the group with very little enthusiasm, a scowl etched on his face.

"Oh, cheer up. You'll get to take out some frustration on the blood mages who are behind the disappearances."

Anders only scowled harder.

Soon, they found themselves by a suspicious set of stairs, that led deeper into Darktown. Danny stuck close to Hawke, while Varric and Anders hung back a bit. If they were ambushed, they'd want their long-ranged fighters in a good position behindthe sword wielders.

A chill went up Danny's spine, and came out his mouth as foggy breath.

"There are gh- demons here," he warned. "And there's a lot of them, I think."

Varric narrowed his eyes and glanced at Danny. He'd obviously noted the slip.

Hawke, on the other hand, only grinned and pulled out her sword.

Despite Danny's Ghost Sense, the room they entered was seemingly empty. Danny tried to check for invisible opponents, for motion where there should be none.

He didn't need to search for long, since the ghosts dropped into visibility as soon as Hawke finished descending the stairs.

Danny sprung into motion behind her, burying his sword in the closest opponent without thinking. As soon as he _did_ think, things turned weird.

 _'Why didn't he just turn intangible? None of them are...'_

Danny dodged an retaliating attack, and stabbed another ghost. If it was a ghost. He was beginning to have doubts about that, despite his Ghost Sense.

A fireball distracted him from his confused musings.

The ghost, or spirit, or demon, or _whatever it was,_ that came at him was made entirely of fire. Despite its normal colour, it wasn't entirely unlike Ember's hair, which made it almost comforting in its familiarity.

 _'I hate fire cores.'_

Danny countered the fire with ice, but the demon didn't let up. It remained focused on Danny, to the exclusion of all else.

With a guttural roar, the demon attacked again. Danny deflected the attack with his sword and blasted the thing away from him with as much ice as he could muster.

Danny held back a second to catch his breath, and the demon jumped into the ground.

 _'Ah, there it is. Good, old-fashioned intangibility. Nice to know not everything here is weird.'_

Waiting for something to jump out of the ground to attack you was... not as nicely nostalgic as he'd imagined. At least the ghost didn't drag it out. It attacked Danny's back, and Hawke cut it down.

In the quiet of the aftermath, Danny couldn't help but wonder what was up with the ghosts in Kirkwall.

 _'Maybe they just weren't smart enough to fight properly. They seemed more beast-like than human.'_

That made cutting them down, however much self-defence involved, feel less horrible.

They continued further into the abandoned mines, with Varric disabling a few traps before the group was blown into smithereens.

"So, why did the templars ask you for help in finding their missing recruits?" Danny asked Hawke, mostly trying to make conversation.

"They didn't. One of the recruits' sister came to me."

Danny shot Anders a pointed glare. _'See, they have family who worry about them. They are people.'_

Anders remained carefully indifferent.

"It was only after that we ran into the templars, and they said that since _they_ weren't able to find out what was going on... Well, they'd be thankful if I fixed things for them. Hopefully thankful enough to pay me for my efforts."

Varric chuckled slightly.

Anders grumbled.

They turned the corner. In the corner of the old, dusty room hung a person. He was suspended in the air, and glowing. However, Danny's Ghost Sense refused to react.

 _'So, magic.'_

Hawke approached the figure, investigating the glow. Danny wondered for a second what she hoped to achieve, since she wasn't a mage.

Before Hawke could try something silly, like jumping up and grabbing onto the floating man, they had some more company.

Four robed humans came in from the other door. The woman leading the group smiled as she saw them. "Coming here on your own... More vessels for our experiments, and we didn't even have to kidnap you."

"Experiments? Is that what you call it? Is that what you call _this?_ " Danny gestured towards the suspended person.

"With my magic, demons can inhabit anyone I want them to."

 _'Why would they... Why would they need help?'_

Danny was too shocked to even ask the question aloud.

"We'll destroy the templar order," the woman continued. "They'll find members of their pathetic order falling to demons. Soon they won't know who to trust!"

The mages attacked, and Hawke was quick to draw her sword. A volley of arrows came from Varric's direction while Anders shot lightning. Soon, the battle was over.

Without the demon-worshipping mages around to maintain the spell, the glowing person floated to the ground. He opened his eyes, looking like he'd been asleep.

"Keran?" Hawke sauntered over, one hand resting on her sword.

"Yes." Keran looked around, trying to orient himself. "I'm... I'm safe? It's over?"

Varric didn't look convinced it was. "How can we be sure he's not Keran _plus_ a nasty passenger?"

"Well, I didn't sense anything from him when we came here..." Danny frowned, his Ghost Sense wasn't that accurate beyond telling him whether there were ghosts around or not. The mines had been filled with ghosts, so it was hard to tell. "But I have a trick that should work."

Danny approached Keran.

Varric didn't look overly happy with the situation, his finger rested on the trigger of the crossbow.

Danny sheeted his sword and cracked his knuckles. "If you're not possessed, this won't hurt you. If you _are_ possessed, this still won't hurt you."

Keran didn't look like he was calmed by Danny's assurances. Danny shot him a smile and punched him in the face.

Or rather, _through_ the face. Danny's fist came out intangibly on the other side. He opened it and wiggled his fingers. "Nope, nothing there."

Keran's eyes were wide as he stumbled back.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to imply that your head was empty. Other than of demons. You head is empty of demons."

"Well then, Keran. You can leave." Hawke shooed the templar recruit away before turning to Danny. "What was _that_?"

"Magic." Danny's answer came a bit too quickly. Anders raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment and didn't seem overly suspicious about it. Varric on the other hand...

Hawke just shrugged. "Okay then. We should probably get back to the templars, tell them what happened."

* * *

The Gallows hadn't been a part of Varric's tour of Kirkwall. Danny could understand why. Kirkwalls Circle of Mages was as cheerful as Walker's prison. Giant statues of people crying, coupled with images of chains... Whomever had build it hadn't even _pretended_ it was anything but a prison.

Hawke and Varric played it cool, but Anders grew visibly uneasy as they entered. Danny couldn't blame him.

The templar's knight-captain Cullen greeted Hawke, and paid little attention to the rest of them. That was probably for the best.

"Blood mages have infested your recruits with demons." Hawke didn't bother with trying to put it nicely. "Keran was demon-free, but I can't say how far this reaches."

"Mages." Cullen spat the word. "They cannot be treated like people. They aren't like you or me, they are at constant risk of becoming monsters."

 _'Did he seriously just say that? Did he_ seriously _just_ say _that!? His non-mage recruits are possessed by demons, and he's angry that mages are at risk of becoming possessed? And that_ somehow _means mages aren't people!?'_

If Danny hadn't had plenty of practice with his parents, he would have said something. Or rather, shouted it. Gone on a rant worthy of Sam. Instead, he clenched his fists until the pain from his nails digging into the skin distracted him.

Anders' earlier comments were starting to make a lot more sense.

* * *

 **AN:** Cullen's comment is pretty much what he says in the game. Sometimes, I have trouble understanding why he's as popular as he is.

I'm still going with the "spirits and demons are ghosts" thing, but there are some differences in powers compared to what Danny's used to. That will be somewhat important later.


	10. On the Subject of Possession

**On** **the** **Subject** **of** **Possession**

"Mouse!"

The floating island in the Ghost Zone that Danny had claimed for his own during his nightly visits wasn't empty, thankfully. Danny's demonic sort-of-friend spent a lot of time away doing stuff Danny wouldn't approve of, but he did make a point of checking in every once in a while.

Danny got the sense that it was mainly because Mouse found him amusing.

"What is it, little spirit?" Mouse's eyes glowed with mirth.

"I need to ask you something! You're all into possession, so I figured you'd know. I can't ask anyone else, because they all think I'm a human and am supposed to know stuff and-"

"What is it?" Mouse cut off Danny's rambling without any remorse.

"There was this blood mage, and she said that she could use magic to make demons possess anyone she wanted them to."

"Yes, I've heard about magic like that. It is possible."

"That wasn't my question."

Mouse raised an eyebrow, looking more intrigued by the minute. "Then, by all means, go on."

"Why wouldn't you _already_ be able to possess anyone you want to?"

"Even a young spirit like yourself should know that you need a willing host to possess somebody."

"What!? Why would anyone _consent_ to being possessed!?"

 _'Sorry Anders.'_

Mouse's smile was positively cat-like. "Trickery, promises of power."

"But I've never had to ask anyone for permission before possessing them!"

Danny knew as soon as he'd said it that he shouldn't have. Mouse's eyes held a burning intensity as they regarded him.

"Really?"

"Yes." Danny squirmed. It was much too late to lie about it. "I just swoop in and take over."

"Can you teach me?"

"I thought everyone already could do it. Overshadowing is supposed to be a basic power!" Danny threw his hands into the air. "It's not something you have to be taught."

Mouse deflated somewhat. "Overshadowing... I think I've heard that term before. Possession without restraints. I thought it was a myth."

"I've seen plenty of others do it. Not just _really_ powerful spirits, but weak ones too."

That Danny and Vlad could do something was one thing, but the entirety of Walker's staff was different.

"Some abilities are more common in some places. Where are you from?"

Right, like how the entirety of the Far Frozen could use ice powers. That wasn't a basic ability either.

"Far away," Danny sighed. "I'm so far away from home it's not even funny."

 _'I wonder if I can still exorcise someone through punching the ghost out. If I can't... Well, if I can't I should probably find some other way to check that the templar recruit I met really_ is _demon-free.'_

"Thanks, Mouse. This explains... Well, it explains a lot."

"Any time, Danny."

* * *

Danny didn't provide much of a conversation as he and Anders sat and ate the plain white bread that served as breakfast.

 _'I miss sugary cereal... on the other hand, I don't have a toothbrush here... I_ really _miss my toothbrush.'_

"What's got you down?" Anders leaned forward slightly and tried to look comforting. The effect was ruined by the dark circles under his eyes.

Danny blinked. He hadn't even noticed he zoomed out. "Nothing, I guess. Not really. Just thinking. This place is... very different from home."

Anders gave an inelegant snort. "I'd imagine. Coming from nobility to a place like this can't be easy."

"That's not even the problem. It's the little things. Like the food, or the way people are dressed, or their accents... It all adds up to let me know I'm not even in my own country anymore."

"Yeah." Anders sighed wistfully. "I'm from the Anderfelds, but I haven't been there in years. I came here via Ferelden, in the south, across the Waking Sea."

"What's it like there?"

"More dogs, for one thing."

Danny exhaled loudly through his nose, in what sort of passed as a laugh, when Hawke and Varric showed up.

"Gooooood morning!" Hawke grinned as she sauntered through the Clinic.

"Morning." Danny gave a small nod in greeting. Varric returned it with a smile.

"Are you done? We're going out." For lack of chairs, Hawke sat down on the edge of the table.

"Not today, Hawke." Anders shook his head.

Hawke raised an eyebrow and shared a meaningful look with Varric. Varric shrugged lazily, seemingly trying to convey 'what can you do?'

Coming to some sort of decision, Hawke grabbed Danny and pulled him out of the Clinic.

"So, Anders is still mad about the whole helping-templars-thing?" Varric gave Danny a sympathetic look.

"I wouldn't say he's angry. More like, tired. He's more alive when he's angry. Now it's like he's dead inside, and trust me, I'm an expert on that."

Varric's eyes narrowed, letting Danny know his in-joke hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Well, since Anders is sitting this one out, we'll pick up Merrill before we head out." Hawke nodded to herself.

"What are we even doing today?"

"Running around, seeing if anyone needs help and is willing to pay for it."

"Wow, truly, that is the most well thought out plan I've ever heard."

Hawke stuck out her tongue at Danny, and he returned the favour. Varric chuckled lightly at their antics.

They walked through the many staircases needed to get from Darktown to Lowtown to the Alienage, where Merrill lived.

The Alienage was as alive as ever, with plenty of elves running around minding their own business.

Merrill had been talking to one of the elves, but ran up to them as she saw them. Varric greeted her warmly, while Hawke and Danny gave small nods.

The only one in the Alienage who you stood out, aside from their group that included two humans and a dwarf, was a human dressed in full templar regalia.

Danny tensed, but kept as neutral an expression as he could. He had plenty of practice pretending to be a normal human being around ghost hunters, pretending to not be a mage around mage hunters was easy. Especially since he wasn't a mage. He placed himself casually between the templar and Merrill, shielding her somewhat from view. If only he wasn't so _short._

The templar was talking to one of the elves, a woman, and Danny listened in. If somebody was turning Merrill in, they needed to be on their guard.

"I can help your son only if he turns himself in," said the templar, and took his leave.

Danny let go of the breath he had been holding. Not about Merrill, then.

The elven woman looked heartbroken, so Danny didn't mind when Hawke approached her. "Hi, I couldn't help but overhear... It sounds like your son is in trouble. Would you like my help?"

"You heard all that, and still you want to help?"

"Maybe I've got a soft spot for apostates." Hawke smirked knowingly.

The woman's eyes lit up with hope. "I am Arianni. My son, Feynriel, is all I have. When we found out he was a mage, I couldn't bring myself to send him to the Gallows... Now, however, he's been plagued with nightmares. Demons, speaking into his mind, trying to take him over..."

"They'll do that." Danny shrugged. "It's not a big deal."

Arianni didn't seem convinced. "I couldn't bare to lose Feynriel to himself, so I asked Ser Thrask for help..." She waved towards the direction the templar had retreated in. "But Feynriel found out, and saw it as me betraying his trust..."

Danny had to stop himself from saying something sarcastic and mean-spirited.

 _'I can't blame her for trying to protect her son. She's just worried and confused.'_

"He deserves to life his own life, free of the Circle." Merrill's comment was softly spoken.

"So, where is Feynriel now?" Hawke tilted her head slightly, drawing all attention to herself.

"I don't know, he ran away. He might have turned to his father, Vincento, to help. He's a merchant at the lower bazaar. If he helped him escape the templars, there is no way Vincento will tell _me_ where Feynriel is..."

"But he might tell us. Got it." Hawke nodded. "We'll find your boy, make sure he's safe."

"Thank you." Arianni's gratitude was heartfelt and genuine.

* * *

What followed was a wild goose chase. Upon convincing Vincento that they wouldn't turn his son over to the templars, which wasn't difficult since Merrill could prove she was an apostate herself, he directed them to an old friend of his, a former templar. When they found him, he made it clear he hadn't helped Feynriel escape Kirkwall, because the boy hadn't been able to pay him for the trouble, but had been able to direct him to yet _another_ person who might be willing to help him...

Danny was getting dizzy from all the circles they were running in.

Still, it seemed like they were finally closing in on the boy. There was a warehouse by the docks, where he might-or-might-not have been taken captive.

That said warehouse was full of armed people that attacked them on sight seemed to improve the odds of them being in the right place.

They fought their way inside, with Hawke and Varric having some sort of unofficial contest of who could take down the most enemies. Varric won, but only barely.

He still took the time to gloat about it as they gathered themselves to open the last closed door in the warehouse.

Hawke opened the door and barged through, sword at the ready. Danny was close behind her.

There were three more armed men inside, along with a girl wearing mage's robes. No Feynriel. The girl was crying, screaming for help, for _anybody_ to help her.

Before Danny could volunteer, the girl caught fire. Her skin stretched, changed. She grew taller, but nothing looked like it was supposed to. A demon had answered her call for aide.

 _'Between possession and overshadowing, overshadowing is looking better and better.'_

The human smugglers were distracted by the transformation. Hawke paused too.

Danny didn't.

In a fluid motion, he sheathed his sword and performed an intangible roundhouse kick. The demon flew out of the girl, who started to shrink back to normal proportions. Danny didn't try to hold back his victorious smirk.

 _'Still got it.'_

The demon stared at Danny, before growling and attacking. Danny didn't have time to pull his sword, put managed to block the attack with an ecto-shield. The demon howled and attacked again, but this time Danny was prepared.

The smugglers got over their shock as they looked from Danny to the host-free demon. Oddly enough, they didn't seem to think a hasty escape was in order and decided to attack.

Hawke intercepted, and with Merrill and Varric acting as support, the situation was taken care of.

The mage girl just sat and watched them in awed silence as they dispatched the smugglers and the demon.

"Are you alright?" Danny knelt by her, and brought up a glowing green finger to check her eyes. The pupils contracted normally, but her lack of verbal response was worrying him.

"Ah- I'm fine. Thank you." She stuttered, obviously upset. "How did you do _that_?"

"I'd also be interested in hearing that, Softy." Varric came up to them, one eyebrow raised.

"Me too." Merrill seemed genuinely intrigued, her innocent interest very unlike Varric's cunning curiosity.

 _'What am I supposed to say "you can only be possessed by one demon at a time and I'm stronger than the one who was possessing her"? Yeah, not a good idea.'_

"It's just a normal exorcism." Danny shrugged and stood up. "It's what I tried on that templar recruit."

Varric nodded to himself.

Hawke grinned. "That's _awesome._ I've never seen anything like that."

"It's not that awesome. My parents built a machine that could do the same thing."

"Seriously?" Varric snickered. "They're templars _and_ inventors? Why haven't I heard about this machine of theirs? Being able to pull demons out of their hosts is a pretty big deal..."

Danny squirmed. "People don't really take them seriously, even though their inventions work."

"Ah, they need a good merchant to sell their things. If you ever get back home, give them my name. I'll make them rich and famous."

Danny smiled, but ignored the dwarf as he turned back to the trembling mage. "Are you _sure_ you're alright?"

"Just a bit shaken. I thought I was going to die."

"If I hadn't been here, you would have." Danny crossed his arms. "Don't let any more demons into your body, okay?"

"Okay." She gave a breathless laugh as she got to her feet. "I'm going back to the Circle. In comparison to what's out here, it doesn't seem that bad anymore."

Hawke shrugged. "That's your choice. Just don't tell them about the whole 'getting taken over by a demon' thing, and I'm sure you'll be fine."

She nodded and left.

Merrill and Varric instantly began peppering Danny with questions, while Hawke just leaned back and enjoyed the show.

"I'm not really sure _how_ it works. It's just something I can do because of my parents." At least the last part wasn't a lie. "They're kind of obsessed with demons and spirits and such."

"I didn't even know it was possible to get a demon out of someone without killing them." Varric crossed his arms. "You don't seem to realise what a big deal this is."

"Exorcism via physical violence _is_ pretty awesome," mused Danny. "But we really should be focusing on finding Feynriel."

Varric's disapproving stare let Danny know his attempt at misdirection via changing the subject was about as smooth as sandpaper.

* * *

 **AN** : The longest chapter in this fic to date, and I'm not even done with the quest _Wayward Son_ yet.

Danny's weird "mage" abilities continue to bring him unwanted attention, on both sides of the Veil, mostly by virtue of being abilities that are impossible for a mage to fully replicate. It's not easy to pretend to be something you don't know anything about.


	11. Those Who Were Left Behind

**Those Who Were Left Behind**

Varric played a mean game of cards, with Wicked Grace being his preferred game.

Part of what made him a good player was his ability to bluff.

That was an ability Danny completely lacked. It was almost amusing, how poor a liar the kid was.

However, being able to see through Danny's lies left Varric with plenty of questions. Number one being "if Danny isn't a mage, how the dust was he able to shoot ice from his hands?"

Varric had a couple of outlandish theories regarding that, many of which involved a certain spirit that had appeared at the same time as Danny.

It didn't bother him that the kid was lying. Since it didn't seem like Danny meant any harm to the people Varric cared about, personal things could remain that way. There was a reason Danny's nickname was Softy.

It was just like Isabela's obvious lies regarding not knowing anything about that artefact she was looking for. It was not something Varric was worried about.

He'd try to fit the pieces together, sure, but he wouldn't force Danny to unravel the mystery.

After all, solving it yourself was the entire point of a puzzle.

* * *

A letter found in the warehouse they had fought in let them know that Feynriel, the young mage they were looking for, had been kidnapped by slavers. Apparently, his mother had been right in worrying about him.

Hawke, Varric, Merrill and Danny had subsequently traced the slavers to a cave on the Wounded Coast.

"Is it just me, or does every single cave looks exactly the same?" Varric looked at their surroundings with poorly hidden contempt.

The cave was dark, dreary, and filled with ferns and fungi. It looked like any other cave.

Merrill stifled a giggle. Danny shrugged.

"The way I see it, it's easier that way. Means we won't get lost." Hawke smirked.

"Now you're making me worried." Danny frowned. "Do you even know where we're going?"

"Of course not. I've never been here before." Hawke sauntered forwards casually.

"I've got this ball of twine we can use to find our way, if we really get lost," offered Merrill.

"It won't come to that," assured Hawke. "I've got an excellent sense of direction."

"Then why are we walking into a dead end every five seconds?" Danny cocked an eyebrow.

"So we don't miss any loot. _Duh_."

* * *

"Take another step, and the boy dies." The slaver held a dagger to the throat of a bound boy.

They had come out into a larger part of the cave, which was filled with mercenaries and similar scum, and immediately been spotted. Their small group was outnumbered, but likely far from outclassed.

Danny just hoped it was _actually_ Feynriel this time. Running around in circled was starting to become frustrating.

"Distract them." Danny said the words as softly as he could, to not be overheard. Varric and Hawke both gave small nods.

Danny returned to the shadows and turned invisible.

 _'Wonder if any mages can do this.'_

Danny tiptoed up to stand behind the thoroughly distracted slaver.

 _'Oh well, if nothing else I can say it's obscure magic from my home.'_

Danny found himself a sufficiently large rock and hit the guy in the back of the head. A bit anti-climatic, maybe, but it did the trick.

As he fell, Danny pulled the bound guy back, so that he wouldn't cut himself of the dropped dagger.

Pandemonium erupted. All the mercenaries in the room started attacking. Danny put up a shield to protect himself and the kidnapped boy.

Feynriel, if that was indeed who he was, gave Danny a wide eyed stare. Danny grinned in reply, cut his ropes, and started throwing ecto-blasts to give his friends some assistance.

"You know, you _can_ help us out here."

Feynriel shook his head. "I wouldn't know how."

"Well then, stay behind me."

The young mage was perfectly willing to do just that.

Soon, all the enemies were taken care of.

"Impressive sneaking, Softy." Varric gave Danny a crooked smile. "We'll make a rogue out of you yet."

 _'Hmm... I guess turning invisible isn't_ _such a big deal in this world. Nice.'_

"Feynriel, right?" Hawke turned towards the boy.

"Ah, yes. Thank you for rescuing me. Did the templars send you?" There was a distinct note of worry as he asked the last part.

"Nah. Your mother did." Hawke leaned on her sword, which she had showed into the ground.

"Like that's any better." Feynriel frowned. "She promised to protect me, but as soon as I get a few bad dreams she turns me over to the templars. Like they could help me, they'll make me Tranquil or worse!"

Danny refrained from asking what being made Tranquil meant. It seemed to be one of those 'common knowledge' things.

"For what it's worth, we're not here to take you to the Circle. We just wanted to make sure you were still alive."

"Why not? Who cares about a mage?"

"I'm not in the business of judging people on what they were born as," drawled Hawke as she sent Merrill and Danny smug looks. "But you should probably get some help with the whole controlling your magic thing."

"I was trying to get to the Dalish elves. My mother was a Dalish, before she had me and moved into the city. I'm sure they would help me."

Hawke turned towards Merrill, who nodded. "They would take you."

"Well then, that's decided. We're taking you to the Dalish." Hawke grinned. "Let's go."

Merrill didn't immediately follow, but rather gave a small whisper of "Creators."

"What's wrong?" Danny fell in step with the elf.

"The Dalish... I left my clan behind when I moved to Kirkwall." Merrill bit on her lip. "I don't want to face the Keeper's disappointed face again. She wields guilt like a particularly sharp weapon."

"Why did you leave?"

"They don't understand what I am trying to do." Merrill's eyes lit up with an inner fire Danny hadn't known she possessed. "I'm trying to restore our lost history, and I'll do that even if it means I have to do it alone."

"You're not alone, Daisy." Varric patted Merrill's arm, and she gave him a grateful smile.

"Yeah, you're stuck with us." Hawke grinned back at them. Merrill blushed a bright red at the comment.

 _'So she left them behind, and is afraid they'll judge her...'_ Danny couldn't help the melancholic smile that his lips twisted into. _'I wonder if the people_ I _left behind blame me for it.'_

* * *

Three sets of footsteps echoed through the Tower of Time, out of pace with the insistent ticking of a hundred clocks.

Sam, Tucker and Jazz emerged in the main room.

"Clockwork!" Sam's jaw was set, her fists clenched. Her eyes burned with determination.

Tucker was more relaxed, but no less confident in his movements.

Jazz trailed behind them both, carefully examining everything with a critical eye. There was something detached about her features, like she was forcing herself to not get too involved with the situation.

"You don't need to shout, I know you're here." Clockwork gave them a flat stare. "And I know _why_ you're here."

"So?" Sam crossed her arms over her chest. "Where's Danny?"

"The answer is 'no'."

Tucker started coughing as he choked on air. "What!? Seriously!? I thought you liked Danny!"

"I won't interfere with the timeline."

"We're not asking you to send us back in time or anything," Sam scowled, her hands on her hips. They hadn't gone all the way to Clockwork's lair to be refused. "We just need you to tell us where Danny is, so we can use the Infi-map to pick him up."

"No."

"Why not?" Jazz's voice was icy.

"Because he is where he needs to be."

"But he's alright?" Her cold facade cracked, her worry showing through the calm. "Is my baby brother okay?"

"He is fine." Clockwork turned to face Jazz fully. "You will see him again."

"Not good enough." Sam stepped forward. "We need him back."

"No, you don't." Clockwork's voice was clipped. He was running out of patience. "You can manage Amity Park on your own, now that ghosts aren't coming through to pick a fight with Phantom. Danny is exactly where he needs to be."

"What does that even mean?" complained Tucker.

"He inherited the Crown of Fire when he ripped it off Pariah Dark's head. He is King of the Ghost Zone."

"Yeah, we know. That's not the point. He doesn't even _want_ to be king. He wants to be an astronaut," sneered Sam. Her patience had been wearing thin ever since Danny disappeared.

"That will change. He will not only learn to accept his role, and he'll grow into it."

"So, what? Is that it? This is all some big plot to manipulate Danny into becoming king?" Sam looked like she'd bitten into something sour.

Clockwork looked away. "I'm not happy with it either, but I do what needs to be done for the good of the Ghost Zone, as well as every single world that is connected to it. Now that he's away from your influence, and all the normal things he has been clinging to, Danny can learn to fully embrace the changes that has been brought into his life."

Sam gave the ancient ghost one last hateful look before storming out of the tower.

Tucker and Jazz followed close behind.

* * *

 **AN** : While there won't be any romance for Danny in this fic, Hawke/Merrill is optionally canon (since it's a game) and very cute and will pop up in the background at times.

I originally had Clockwork hinting at a certain elven god that will (probably) mess things up with the Fade in DA4, but I'm not sure I want this fic to be _that_ long. It's kind of a big commitment. Especially since DA4 doesn't even exist yet.


	12. Training Fit For a Guard

**Training Fit For a Guard**

It was two hours before sunset, and while the sun stood low on the sky it had yet to change colours into the radiant spectacle that accompanied it actually setting.

Danny followed Anders into a training ground at the outskirts of Kirkwall.

It was a field, where trampled grass shared the ground with packed dirt. There was a low stone wall around the grounds, but not enough to keep anybody out if they had even a smidgen of determination.

There were several wooden training dummies, wrapped in burlap, that seemed to be meant for sword practice.

Why Anders, a mage in hiding, had decided to take Danny there, was yet to be explained.

"Danny." Anders was visibly nervous, which only made matters worse. "You know how Hawke... doesn't exactly have high standards for friends."

Danny frowned, trying to figure out where the conversation was going. True, Hawke's friends were an eccentric bunch. The only thing the people Danny had met had in common were that they were interesting and that they could fight... and that they could put up with Hawke.

"You haven't exactly met all of us."

Danny shrugged. There were plenty of people he hadn't met.

"Today, Aveline is going to teach us sword techniques."

"But you're a mage." Danny wanted to add that he _had_ met Aveline, however briefly, but decided not to. Anders probably wasn't referring to her. "You don't carry a sword."

"She thinks it might one day save our lives." Anders' lips thinned. "She's very persistent about it. She puts all of Hawke's... _companions_ through training at least twice a month."

Danny nodded.

"That means that, today, you're going to meet Fenris." Anders looked like he had bitten into something sour. "Don't let him know you're a mage."

"That... I can do."

A voice behind him chuckled, and Danny had to stop himself from jumping. Varric appeared from the shadows, with the confidence of someone who _hadn't_ just listened in on a private conversation.

"I'm sure Softy thinks pretending _not_ to be a mage is easy." Varric had the gall to wink at Danny, who frowned with suspicion.

Anders didn't appear to notice the implications of that statement.

"Yeah." Danny got the word out through clenched teeth. For now, it was best to keep the act up. Even if Varric suspected something, Anders didn't. Out of the two, Anders was more important, since he provided Danny with food and housing - albeit in exchange for help around the Clinic. "You know, Templar parents and all. I'm used to this."

If anything, that only made Anders scowl harder.

"Relax, Blondie." Varric smirked. "I'm sure it will all work out. And if it doesn't... that makes a more interesting story."

"You're not helping." Anders practically sang the words.

"Not helping with what?" Merrill came around a corner, accompanied by Isabela.

Danny shrugged, like he had no idea what was going on.

Varric grinned, but didn't comment.

A few minutes later, Hawke and her sister Bethany walked into the training grounds.

A few minutes after that, a man Danny had never seen before joined them.

Anders helpfully leaned over and whispered "Fenris" from the corner of his mouth.

At first glance, Fenris looked like a grown-up Phantom. White hair, dark eyebrows, slim build. The only thing Fenris lacked was the glowing aura and eyes. A laughably big sword was strapped to his back, and there seemed to be a permanent scowl etched onto his face.

Danny tried not to stare at the tattoos running over Fenris' exposed arms and face.

Fenris sent one glare in Danny's general direction, which might actually have been aimed for Anders, before ignoring them. Isabela pulled him into conversation, while Merrill talked to Hawke.

Bethany walked over to them. Danny couldn't remember if he'd met her as Fenton or Phantom, so he merely gave her a nod in greeting.

Varric took pity on him. "Danny, this is Bethany. Bethany, Danny."

"Nice to meet you." She smiled like she meant it.

"Yeah, you too."

"So, I heard that you're a noble..." She seemed hesitant to ask. "What's it like?"

Danny blinked. "Why?"

"My mother's family, the Amells, were nobles here in Kirkwall." Bethany added as explanation. "I guess I'd just like to know what could have been, if we'd stayed."

"Okay." Danny frowned, buying himself time to actually come up with something. "Well... I think nobility back home and nobility here are a bit different."

Bethany nodded, and turned the motion into a shrug.

"When I'm visiting other nobles, they always throw a party. I can never just casually visit anybody, not even my closest friends. And nobody calls me by name." Danny's voice took the timbre of a rant long repeated. "It's always Sir Ph-Fenton or Great One or Pr- erm. Or stuff like that. It gets annoying after a while."

"What was that last one?" Varric's eyes twinkled with mirth.

"Protector of the Realm. You know, because I'm a knight." Danny got the words out fast enough that they slurred together. "But nobody really calls me that, since it's such a mouthful."

Before anyone could ask Danny to elaborate, Aveline joined the group. She was carrying a pile of practice swords and somehow seemed scarier than ever before, including the times she'd had her sword pointed at Phantom. "What are you lot standing around for!? Give me ten laps!"

* * *

Aveline's drill sergeant routine was harsh, but effective. Her training was much better than PE, if only because Danny didn't have to hide his capabilities.

The clouds in the sky had turned a bright pink. All of the mages were sitting on the sidelines, breathing heavily. Varric and Isabela weren't quite as badly off, but it was clear neither of them had put much time into building stamina.

Aveline looked at them with a fond sort of contempt, like a disappointed mother.

"I guess it's just us left. Again." She turned towards the ones still standing, and looked a bit surprised to see Danny there. He waved at her.

"I can still go on." Danny smiled and shrugged. "I need the practice."

"I don't think we've been introduced." Fenris inclined his head. "I am Fenris."

"Danny Fenton."

Something akin to worry flashed over Aveline's face as she watched the interaction.

Danny was about to suggest a friendly spar when bandits attacked.

What the bandits thought they'd get out of the situation was questionable, but for some reason they must have felt that attacking a group of obviously armed people would be worth it.

"Hawke, is there money on your head or something?" Danny frowned as he dodged a pair of daggers.

"Probably." Hawke sounded way too cheerful while admitting that. "I've pissed off a lot of rich people. And crime syndicates."

"Lovely." Danny used both hands to swing the pommel of his sword into the back of someone's head.

Another bandit attacked, giving Danny barely enough time to parry her first attack and _not_ enough to block her second.

The bandit raised her sword.

Danny stumbled. He wouldn't be able to get his sword up in time.

The bandit grinned.

The bandit _stopped._ Blood leaked from her mouth as she coughed. There were a few seconds of stillness and she fell, revealing Fenris standing behind her. His tattoos were faintly glowing. He was holding onto her heart.

Danny felt sick.

Frozen in shock as he was, he didn't notice yet another bandit coming at him until it was too late.

On instinct, Danny turned intangible as the sword swung through him.

The bandit stumbled, completely unbalanced as his sword didn't hit its target.

Fenris took the opportunity to cut his head off.

With the last bandit dead, Fenris turned towards Danny. "How did you do that?"

"I plead the fifth." Danny's mouth answered before his brain could add any input.

"I have no idea what that means."

"Considering how I'm not at home anymore... nothing. It means absolutely nothing."

Fenris' eyes narrowed with suspicion. "These lyrium markings grant me the ability to pass through things, but no more than an arm at a time."

"That's how you-" Danny gestured vaguely towards the pulled out heart lying abandoned on the ground.

Fenris nodded.

"Interesting. Terrifying, but interesting." Danny put his hand to his chin. "I didn't know it was possible to replicate. I suppose these markings have something to do with the Fade?"

"You are a mage." Fenris sounded thoroughly disappointed. Like he had been holding out hope that there was some other explanation for recent events.

"Yeah." Danny shrugged. The cat was well and out of the bag, no point in pretending otherwise.

Fenris scowled in Hawke's general direction.

She gave him a thumbs-up.

* * *

 **AN** : I found some NaNoWriMo advice that said "If stuck, have ninjas attack." Thanks to that advice, this chapter actually ended up finished. Praise be random encounters and me already writing with just enough comedic elements that this doesn't feel completely out of place.

I'll try to get back to regular Friday updates now that I've overcome this hurdle, but I make no promises.


	13. When It Rains

**When** **It** **Rains**

The cave was shallow, barely more than a hole in the wall, but enough to protect them from the rain. As long as the wind didn't pick up any more, at least.

The virtue of having friends that knew about his "magic" was that Danny could go intangible as they entered, leaving himself perfectly dry.

Similarly, Merrill started to lightly steam. "An underpowered fire spell," she explained to a questioning Hawke. "Keeping myself warm was one of the first things the Keeper taught me."

Hawke gave them an envious look, which fit her temporary 'drowned cat' image, so Danny stretched out and poked her and Varric, transferring his intangibility as he did.

"Tingly," noted Hawke. "What did you do?"

Danny gestured vaguely towards their clothes.

Varric's eyebrows rose on his forehead as he noticed they were dry again.

"You can _make others-_ " Hawke's eyes were wide.

"Yeah. I take it Mr. Grumpy Tattoos can't?" Danny smirked, feeling more smug than he had any right to.

Hawke ungracefully plopped down on the ground, leaning her back against uneven rock. "Nope."

Meanwhile, Merrill had somehow managed to put together a fire. It looked like she had used some of the trash Hawke collected as kindling, a mixture of blank vellum and old socks.

The four of them were out on the Wounded Coast, looking for one of Hawke's contacts, when the weather changed. The blue sky had turned dark grey in a matter of minutes, and the rain had soon followed. The strong gusts coming in from the ocean had quickly made the situation unbearable, and they had ducked into the first shelter they could find. That turned out to be a small cave behind an abandoned cart. It was filled with spiders, normal sized ones thankfully, and weird glowing mushrooms.

Varric seemed to hate it on principle.

"Actually, Danny's magic reminds me of some stories I've heard." Merrill looked thoughtful, tapping a finger against her chin.

"Really?" Danny's voice shook slightly. He could feel his stomach dropping.

Completely oblivious to Danny's mounting terror, Merrill continued. "Yes. It was an old elven tradition, _Dirth'ena Enasalin_. It is said that some who followed it could shroud themselves with the Fade, becoming ghost-like in order to avoid taking damage. They were mages who fought with swords, much like you do."

Danny was leaning forward, placing himself uncomfortably close to the fire. He didn't care. He didn't know much about magic, but that sounded like...

It sounded like halfas.

He needed to know more. The thought of _not being alone_ , as he had feared he was back before he'd met Vlad... And even after meeting Vlad... Dani aside, he could finally find someone who could teach him about his powers.

Even if they weren't halfas, they would have to know a lot about the Ghost Zone. Maybe enough to build a portal to get him home.

"Do you know anymore about them? I mean, erm, it sounds very similar to my magic and it's always nice to learn more and-"

Merrill looked away, slumping into herself. "Like much of elven history, the knowledge has been lost to time."

"Oh." Danny deflated. He should have expected that, the Universe didn't let good things just happen to him. "That's a shame."

Merrill smiled thinly. There was determination in her eyes Danny had never noticed before.

There was an uncomfortable silence, which was only broken by the insistent dripping of water further inside the cave.

Danny leaned back onto the cool rock. He was sitting on a stick, but he couldn't bring himself to move it. It would take too much energy. He closed his eyes, letting himself drift into sleep.

Danny opened his eyes.

The green sky of the Ghost Zone stretched out before him.

He still didn't understand how people from Thedas ended up in the Ghost Zone when they went to sleep, but he couldn't really investigate it since everyone seemed to just accept it as a fact of life. If he implied things should be different, he'd give away the fact that he wasn't as normal as he appeared.

Danny sat up on the small-ish floating island that he had somehow claimed as his own. Aside from a marvellous view, it didn't really have anything of interest.

If this was, by some twist of fate, his ghost-side's Lair...

Danny blinked.

Technically, being a piece of rock that he sort of owned in the Ghost Zone... _Technically,_ that _did_ make it his Lair, right?

Huh.

He sort of wished Mouse was there, because Mouse was a treasure-trove of knowledge regarding the Zone. Most of it was probably considered common sense amongst Zone-born ghosts, but since Danny had very obviously started life as a human, rather than ectoplasm gaining sentience on its own... Well, he could get away with asking obvious questions. Especially if he threw in a little flattery every know and then. Despite all his wisdom, Mouse had an ego the size of a small European country.

Danny stood up to survey his maybe-Lair.

He was forced to admit that it was the most boring place he'd ever been. That included both Aunt Alicia's house in the woods and Mr. Lancer's classroom five minutes before the bell rang.

 _'If it really is my Lair-'_ thought Danny to himself. _'-I should be able to do something about that.'_

The question was _how_ he would do that.

Mouse would know. Heck, _the Box Ghost_ knew.

Of course, even if Boxy were to show up, he wouldn't be willing to tell Danny.

 _'If Boxy can figure it out, I can.'_

With renewed determination, Danny walked around the island. It didn't take long, but he figured it was still twice the size of his room at home.

He sat down on the uncomfortable ground again.

 _'What I_ need _is a sofa.'_

Danny suddenly found himself sitting on a perfect replica of the couch in his living room. Even the deep indent in his dad's favourite spot was the same.

Danny smiled.

* * *

When Danny opened his eyes in the real world, his back hurt. He was freezing, in a way that would probably be deeply uncomfortable if he didn't have a cold core.

"Guess that's what I get for sleeping on the ground," he grumbled to himself as he tried in vain to work out a kink in his neck.

Hawke and Merrill spared him a glance before going back to their mumbled conversation.

"Slept well, Softy?" Varric turned towards Danny, apparently bored with whatever the others were talking about.

"I guess. I dreamt about interior decorating." Danny smirked, not bothering to hide the double meaning – there was no way to get anything from it without context.

Varric seemed to realise that, it the challenge that flashed through his eyes were any indication. "Oh? I can't say I relate. Dwarves don't dream, after all."

Danny blinked mutely.

Varric smirked, like he'd just won a point in whatever game they were playing. Still, he wasn't mean-spirited about it, because he added an explanation. "We're cut off from the Fade. It's why you don't see any dwarven mages."

"That's... interesting." Danny frowned. Did that explain why nobody at home dreamt of the Zone? But if that was the case, why did Danny start dreaming about it as soon as he landed in this weird dimension? "Though not dreaming sounds kinda boring."

Varric gave a small grunt, not quite agreeing. "I'm fine with not ending up in a realm filled with demons every time I go to sleep, thank you very much."

Danny shrugged. "Not all of them are that bad."

"Maybe not to _you._ "

Danny's heart beat loudly in his ears. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Varric shrugged with a casual indifference. Danny was 70% sure it was faked. "Since you can do those exorcisms, I imagine they can't possess you."

That was misdirection, but Danny let it slide. Pushing it would only end in dangerous conversations.

"I guess I'd just push them out and take back control, if they tried." Danny pushed away old memories of Pointdexter, and the time he'd spent overshadowing Danny's body. Going by what he knew of the non-overshadowing type of possession that most demons apparently used, Danny would have no trouble winning a battle over his body.

Varric nodded, looking rather serious about it.

"But gh- spirits are kind of like people." Danny couldn't help but return to that thread of conversation. "Sure, some want to kill everyone you love... but we've run into plenty of humans who want that too. Some spirits are nice. Like Justice. He's never tried to kill us."

Varric nodded. Then a smirk spread across his lips. "So your measure of 'nice' depends on whether people try to murder you or not?"

"Well, not _just_ that," admitted Danny, rolling his eyes. "There's plenty of nice people who has tried to murder me at some point. I try to not hold it against them."

If Varric's flat expression was any indication, that was the wrong thing to say. There was something akin to worry in his eyes, but he seemed to squash it down as best he could. "Softy... Those are some pretty low standards."

"I'm a... mage. People who realise that tend to attack me on sight." Danny looked away. "That's just how it is."

"Well, not around us." Varric kept his neutral expression. "Aside from Fenris, and he's got his reasons, we don't have any issues with mages. By the Ancestors, we've all grown used to Anders' extra passenger."

Not for the first time, Danny got a feeling that Varric knew exactly what Danny was.

"You'll be fine with us, Softy."


	14. A Tale of Two Cities

**A Tale of Two Cities**

Amity Park was not a perfect town, or even a nice place to live. Between the ghosts and... well, the ghost _hunters,_ living in Amity Park meant being constantly aware of the risk of getting blasted or run over by an RV.

Since Kirkwall had some similar problems with demons and templars, that wasn't really a point in Kirkwall's favour.

Which meant that Amity Park won any game of comparison, purely by virtue of being _flat._

Kirkwall was built on a strategically nice hill by the sea. That was all well and good for a semi-medieval city's defences. However, it meant that if you wanted to get from the district commonly dubbed Lowtown to the similarly named Hightown, there were stairs involved. Many, many stairs.

Really, you could guess as much from the names _Low_ town and _High_ town.

That didn't stop Danny from grumbling to himself as he followed Anders up the hill. The harsh sun beating down on them made the exercise nearly unbearable, despite the usual ocean breeze.

The farther up the hill they got, the nicer the surroundings became. Packed dirt and cobblestone turned to carved stone, and everything was much _cleaner._

Danny had to stop himself from fidgeting when a nicely dressed woman turned her nose at them. The stolen coat he was wearing had seen better days. At least Anders knew all the tricks for cleaning out blood stains. (The best way was apparently cold water and lemons, but citrus fruits had to be imported and were therefore a bit too expensive to buy simply to clean with.)

The two of them, three if you counted Justice, walked up another set of stairs to get from the High Town market to a small square, neatly tucked away between the stone buildings.

Despite there being plenty of people around, it was easy to find Hawke in the crowds. Even if virtually everyone else there _hadn't_ been a dwarf, Hawke tended to stand out. By her side was Varric, who nearly seamlessly blended into the crowd.

"Oh, great, you're here." Hawke grinned, the smile seemingly an outlet for her infectious energy.

"Care to enlighten us as to what we're doing?" Anders raised an eyebrow.

Hawke bounced on her heels. "The Deep Roads Expedition."

Anders paled.

Danny frowned. "The what?"

"We're going on a treasure hunt. _The_ treasure hunt. We're finally ready to go." Hawke's eyes sparkled. "Monsters and money await. There will be risks, but odds are I'll finally be able to move my family out of the slums."

That didn't explain what the Deep Roads were... that was probably another Common Knowledge thing, since Danny's question had been open-ended enough that Hawke would have explained it otherwise.

"My brother Bartrand and I, along with Hawke, are in charge." Varric shot them a charming smile. "The rest of you would be hired help."

"So we'd get paid, then?" Danny tilted his head. He could use the money to buy some more or less illegal magic books, to see if there was a way to open up a portal home without human sacrifice.

Varric nodded. "You'd be something like bodyguards. There is safety in numbers, especially when we don't know how many darkspawn we'll have to face, and none of the others on the expedition know how to fight." He gestured vaguely towards the dwarves around them, all of which seemed to be unarmed.

Anders twitched slightly at the mention of darkspawn. Danny pretended he didn't notice, so he didn't have to pretend he understood what was going on.

Whatever type of monster these "darkspawn" were, Anders did not like them. It kind of looked like he wanted to get out of the entire expedition, just to avoid them.

"Why us?" Anders was scowling, his eyes cold.

"You've got experience, and Softy has... Well, there is a risk... However small... It's underground. If there is a cave-in, it would be useful to have someone who can walk through walls with us." Varric looked distinctly uncomfortable, his usual suaveness missing.

"I'd rather not go back to the Deep Roads, and I don't think Danny-"

"I'm going." Danny crossed his arms and made direct eye contact. "If you want to stay here, that's one thing, but leave me out of it."

Anders looked insulted. "The Deep Roads are dangerous, I don't want you-"

 _'Oh. He was worried about_ me _and not just himself. That's... No wonder he's offended.'_

It was still weird to have someone who knew about Danny putting himself in danger, and who got _that_ worried about it.

"Sorry, but staying in Kirkwall hasn't gotten me any closer to finding-" Danny cut himself off with a shake of the head. "I might track down the thing I'm looking for in these _Deep_ _Roads_." He enunciated the words carefully, so he wouldn't say them wrong and prove his lack of knowledge. "I'm not going to give up an opportunity like that."

Anders sighed deeply, his shoulders sagging like a deflating balloon. "Then I'm coming too."

"Great," grinned Hawke, completely ignoring the tension still hanging in the air. "Finish up what you need as soon as you can, because we'll be gone for weeks."

Anders mumbled to himself as he turned around. "Danny, stay here. I'll need to finish up things at the Clinic, and pack some healing potions. I'll be right back."

Danny nodded, even though Anders didn't see it in his distraction.

Danny sat down in the shade while they waited.

After a while, Varric joined him. "I can only deal with Bartrand for so long, you know?"

"Yeah, I have an older sister back home." Danny smiled wryly. "She's great. In small doses."

Varric shrugged casually, but didn't agree. Danny got the sense that Varric and Bartrand weren't nearly as close as him and Jazz.

"So," said Danny to change the subject. "The Deep Roads?"

Varric gave him a knowing look, but he obviously didn't want to dwell on his relationship to his brother, so he allowed the less than smooth transition. "Long ago, the dwarven empire were made of many underground cities, thaigs. They were all connected by the Deep Roads."

"The Deep Roads are... roads in the deep? Makes sense."

"Aside from Orzhammar and Kal-Sharok, the old thaigs have been lost to the darkspawn and abandoned. There are treasures untold just waiting for someone to find them."

"I suppose." Danny frowned. "But there are also the reason these treasures were abandoned in the first place. These _darkspawn_."

"You haven't heard of darkspawn?" Varrics eyebrows shot up. "Even if you don't know dwarven history, you must have at least heard about the Blight."

 _'And I've gone too far into the realm of Common Knowledge that even Varric can't pretend I'm normal anymore.'_

Danny gave an apologetic smile and his new favourite response. "We probably have a different name for them in my country."

Varric grudgingly nodded, bowing to the beauty of the 'different names' argument. There was no way to defend against it, after all. Especially since Danny hadn't been lying the first time he used it – he couldn't have known people in Kirkwall called the Ghost Zone something as weird as 'the Fade'.

"The darkspawn. Tend to hide underground and only come out during Blights? They carry the taint?"

"Nope, I've got nothing. Maybe if you explain what the 'taint' actually is, rather than just assume I'll recognize the word?" It felt wrong to prod a visibly frustrated Varric like that, since Danny was nearly sure he wouldn't know anything about these darkspawn no matter which names were used for them, but it was the least suspicious way to get the information.

"We don't really know what the taint is, to be honest." Varric frowned, gaze a million miles away. "It's like a decease that infects both the land and the people on it, killing everything it touches. Except the darkspawn, of course."

"Of course." Danny smiled, but let it fall as he shrugged. "I don't think we've ever had anything like that at home... except maybe the plague, but I don't think that comes with attacking monsters... I guess I'm just too much of a spoiled noble, who knows nothing of the troubles of the common folk." He leaned back a bit and pressed a hand to his chest at the last part, the back of his other hand resting against his forehead.

Varric smirked at Danny's dramatics. "Maybe you are."

Danny dropped the pose. "I only really know the Fade, so unless it's got something to do with-"

"The Chantry teaches that the taint came from the Fade," interrupted Varric.

Danny quickly leaned forward. "Really?"

"Yes." Varric leaned back, settling into story-mode. "Ancient mages from Tevinter sought to usurp the Heavens, and used blood magic to open a gateway into the Fade."

Danny's breath hitched.

"They made their way into the Golden City," continued Varric. "But when they stepped into it, the very stones beneath their feet blackened. Their hubris brought their downfall, and the Golden City became the Black City as the taint spread across it."

"But that doesn't explain where it _came_ from," protested Danny. "Why would it just appear? Just because they entered the city? Either they brought it with them or it was already there, right?"

Varric shrugged, seemingly not bothered. "The Chantry claims it was the Maker's punishment for bringing sin to Heaven."

 _'You'd think I would have noticed something like that in the GZ... Well, just because that's what their church preaches doesn't make it true. Maybe the taint came from somewhere else and the Zone is a good scapegoat since everyone here is afraid of demons already. Or maybe I've completely missed some very dangerous part of the Ghost Zone.'_

"Hmmmmmmmm." Danny frowned. "I don't think I've heard of this Black City either, but that's probably another naming difference."

"I suppose, but I'm not the best person to talk to about the Fade, being a dwarf and all."

"Humour me anyway?"

"I'll give it a try," there was a small wrinkle between Varric's eyebrows as he continued. "I've heard that the Black City is a walled city, like a castle, in the heart of the Fade. The Chantry claims it contains the Seat of the Maker, while Tevinter calls it the home of the Old Gods."

"Waaait a second. A black castle in the middle of the Fade. With a throne. Are we talking about Pariah's Keep?" Danny couldn't stop his repulsion and shock from entering his voice as the pieces came together.

 _'Okay, so_ not _a part of the Ghost Zone where I haven't been.'_

Varric shrugged, obviously unaffected by the storm of emotion Danny experienced. "Maybe, sounds like it could be the same. I take it your people have some different stories about the place."

Danny could only nod.

Varric looked curious, attentive eyes fixed on Danny.

 _'He sure has the puppy dog eyes down.'_

"Pariah's Keep was home of Pariah Dark. He was a spirit. Or a demon. Same difference. King of the Fade, which he ruled with an iron fist from his throne in the Keep. He had two artefacts of power, the Crown of Fire and the Ring of Rage, and with them he was close to a god."

Varric nodded, a hand on his chin.

"Eventually, the Ancients came together to stop his reign of terror. There was a huge battle and they trapped him, made him go into the forever sleep. The end."

 _'And then he woke up last year and I punched him in the face. The end.'_

"Kid, when I've taught you how to lie properly, I'm gonna teach you how to tell a story. They're related skills, in any case."

"Erm, thanks?"

"You're welcome." Varric nodded, fully serious. "But I get the drift. It sounds like Tevinter and Dalish lore, mixed together, yet slightly different from both."

"...Okay?"

Something passed behind Varric's eyes, and he put a contemplative finger to his chin. "Actually, I think heard about a spirit being called 'king' before."

Danny had to stop himself from visibly tensing. Varric hadn't been there when that blood mage had tried to summon the King, ending up with Phantom, but four of his friends had. Any one of them could have gossiped about it. "Is that so?"

"I can't remember where..."

Danny had to stop himself from visibly _relaxing._ "It's probably nothing. You know how demons are, if they think they can get away with it they'll say anything. If he wasn't wearing a burning crown, it wasn't the true King." More like a prince.

Varric just shrugged and let the subject drop.

* * *

 **AN** : This chapter snowballed far away from the Expedition, but next chapter we're entering the Deep Roads properly.


	15. Entering the Deep Roads

**AN:** Some lines are paraphrased from the game.

* * *

 **Entering the Deep Roads**

The sun beat down on them without mercy.

Considering where they were going, Danny wasn't sure of whether he was grateful for the last sunlight he'd see in weeks, or for the fact that they wouldn't have to suffer through it for much longer.

Danny silently followed the procession. Hired hands, both human and dwarf, walked with purpose behind Bartrand. Varric's brother was consulting a set of maps, every once in a while looking up at the mountains looming over them to check that they were going the right way.

The expedition was large and slow. Aside from the few carts carrying supplies, there were no vehicles involved – everyone travelled by foot. That was for the best, since the few carts they _did_ have had plenty of trouble navigating the rocky terrain. Danny was recruited several times to push one past hurdles.

At least the dwarf who owned the cart, a merchant named Bodhain, was good company. With Anders getting more grim the further into the mountains they got, and Varric consistently complaining about nature, it was nice to talk to someone who had an actual _smile_ on their face.

Bodhain's son Sandal had taken one look at Danny, his vacant eyes looking right through him, before deciding to get as far away from him as possible. According to Bodhain, that was normal behaviour for the boy. Since Sandal wasn't inclined to explain himself, Danny tried to ignore it.

Still, it was with a less than sunny disposition that Danny faced their entrance into the Deep Roads.

The entrance was, for all intents and purposes, a normal cave. The cave system was large on its own, with a steep descent. The further in they got, the further under ground.

Finally, natural cave formation gave way to man-made (dwarf-made) construction. It looked like a cave wall had collapsed, rather than anything had been done on purpose to link the two different systems. A pile of disordered rocks supported the cave in theory. Workers had to push them to the side before the carts could enter.

Danny looked around with wide eyes as they entered the Deep Roads proper.

The ceiling was _much_ higher than he would have expected, from something built by dwarves. It was impressive, more like a castle than a subway. Unsurprisingly, the grey tones of rock dominated the scene. Contrary to the natural caves they had passed through, there was precious little vegetation. The moss, fern and deep mushroom were nowhere in sight.

The air around them was musty and stale, but rich in smells. Dust and sweat dominated, accompanied by hints of murkier tones that reminded Danny of the wet and earthy scents in the natural caves.

It took Danny two days of walking to come to the conclusion that he didn't like the Deep Roads very much.

He missed the open sky, and the stars, and the lack of stones that could at any moment fall down and crush them all.

 _'I am a ghost. If the ceiling crashes down, I'll just go intangible. I am a ghost. If the ceiling-'_

Repeating the mantra inside his head was a small comfort, but a comfort none the less.

Somewhere along the line, he had abandoned Bodhain to join Anders and Hawke. Even Varric stuck by them, seemingly mostly to avoid his brother.

Hawke was cheerful, almost annoyingly so. Meanwhile, Anders tempered continued plummeting. Varric was a good go-between, being relaxed but not upbeat.

Four days after entering the Deep Roads, the procession came to an abrupt halt.

Danny and the Friends of Hawke (complete with Hawke) were close enough to the front to immediately see why; One of the dwarves that had been sent to scout ahead had returned, a man with blocky tattoos covering his face. "There's a cave in up ahead, we won't get through that way."

Bartrand swore.

"We could try one of the side tunnels." Hawke exuded confidence, and gestured towards their quartet to show who she included in the 'we'. "Even if there's darkspawn, we can take them."

Bartrand looked less than convinced.

"I hate the Deep Roads," muttered Anders. "Should have never come back."

"You've been here before?" Danny zoomed out of Hawke's and Varric's conversation with Bartrand, turning fully towards Anders.

"Not in these parts, but yes. I used to be a Gray Warden," said Anders, like that explained everything. It probably did, if you had the necessary background knowledge. Since Danny had spent most of his time in Kirkwall looking up information on spirits and portals into the Fade, along with common healing herbs because he wanted to pull his weight at the Clinic, he did in fact _not_ have that knowledge.

Danny nodded, pretending to understand what they were talking about.

Meanwhile, Varric worked things out with his brother and Hawke started leading their group away from the main part of the expedition.

"Excuse me, I'd hate to add to your troubles, but..." Bodhain called out to them, wringing his hands together in worry. "My boy Sandal has gone missing."

"We're checking out the side-tunnels. If he's there, we'll find him." Hawke managed to be surprisingly comforting and mature.

"Thank you. He just doesn't understand danger like he should."

Hawke nodded, and they set off.

Compared to the grandeur of the main tunnel, the side-tunnels were small and chaotic. The artistic stonework that decorated the walls in the main tunnel was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there were wooden structures, falling apart with rot.

Nearly as soon as they entered, Anders stiffened. His eyes scanned the area, quickly darting around with practised purpose. The reaction was oddly familiar, but it took Danny a second to recognize it from the outside. Anders had sensed something. Was that a "Gray Warden" thing?

Danny unsheathed his sword.

"Darkspawn." Anders growled the warning, pulling out his staff. The tip of it, an unassuming crystal, cracked with white lightning.

Varric swore and readied his crossbow. Hawke _grinned_ and readied her sword, all pretence at maturity forgotten.

Everyone's eyes were drawn to the other end of the tunnel, where it opened up into a small cave.

They braced themselves as they charged forward.

Even so, Danny hesitated.

Darkspawn were...

Well, they were vaguely humanoid, for one. Arms and legs and the rest where one would expect them. Their bodies weren't the most eye-catching thing about them.

Their faces were obviously stolen from somebody's nightmare, skeletal and horrifying. Their exposed teeth made them seem to be constantly grinning, with eyes that seemed to hunger for nothing but causing pain.

"And people call _me_ a monster," Danny muttered, the weak attempt at humour enough to bring him back to his game. Simple ecto-blasts hit the three closest darkspawn, and a wall of ice stopped others from approaching him. The fingers around his sword were clammy, and he couldn't get a proper grip.

Meanwhile, Anders and Varric teamed up to keep them from being overrun by new arrivals, and Hawke dealt with the ones who had already approached the group.

Steeling himself, Danny finally gripped his sword tightly and joined her.

* * *

A string of curses went through Anders' head, because he was supposed to have _left_ the Wardens. Returning to the Deep Roads, even in the company of friends – _especially_ in the company of friends, hadn't been on the agenda.

It left him a bundle of frazzled nerves.

Varric and Hawke were one thing. They were adults, no matter how irresponsibly they acted at times. Danny was just a kid. More than that, he was a young mage Anders had decided to take care of personally. Bringing him into the Deep Roads was wrecking havoc on whatever brotherly instincts he had managed to develop.

At least the kid could pass through swords, as weird an ability as that was.

All in all, Danny had an odd mix of skills, but that was to be expected of someone who had learnt in secret while hiding from templar parents. Say was you wanted to about the Circle, and Anders certainly did, but they were one of few places a mage could learn to control magic.

His musings were interrupted by the sound of fighting up ahead.

Darkspawn didn't normally fight amongst themselves, but the monsters could have run into cave spiders or something similar.

Hawke looked around to make sure they were all ready to face whatever it was that were making the noises up ahead before charging forward.

When they arrived, the battle was over.

The floor was covered in dead darkspawn, surrounding a lone figure.

The young dwarf turned around to face them. "Hello." If not for the greeting, Anders would have assumed the boy hadn't noticed their presence at all.

"That's Bodhain's boy." Varric's eyes were wide with shock.

"He didn't die horribly before we could save him." Danny smiled widely, his voice filled with relief.

Hawke nodded and turned towards Sandal. "How did you do all this?"

"Enchantment." Sandal held out a hand, giving Hawke a small stone. A rune, Anders realised. Magic forced into an object, which limited the type of magic that could be pulled from it into one spell, but made repeat use easy. Throwing explosion runes around would explain how Sandal had survived the attack of the many, many darkspawn that surrounded him.

"Let's get you back to camp. Bodhain is worried about you," Hawke gently led Sandal away from the carnage. As the two of them passed Danny, Sandal visibly tensed.

"Right." Danny let the two pass, creating some distance before following them. "Darkspawn are fine, but _I'm_ scary."

Anders and Varric shared a look. Neither one of them had missed the resentment and frustration in Danny's voice.

Anders could go into a tirade about how people feared mages and there was little they could do about it as long as the Chantry preached anti-mage propaganda, but that wouldn't help. He kept his mouth closed and hoped Varric had a better approach.

"It's a common phobia," claimed Varric sagely. "Teenagers with twigs for arms plague the nightmares of even the bravest men."

"Shut up." Despite the harsh words, Danny had a small smile on his face. That had to count for something.


	16. Exploring the Deep Roads

**AN:** Lines paraphrased from the game, since I'm too lazy to look up the scenes properly.

* * *

 **Exploring the Deep Roads**

They had eventually found a way around the cave-in, leading the expedition right where they were planning on going – into an ancient, abandoned thaig.

Danny couldn't help but look around with wide eyes as they entered the ruins.

Old as it was, the place was a mixture of dwarven craftsmanship, with stairs and straight walls, and natural cave formation, with stalagmites and deep mushrooms reclaiming the area. Parts of the floor was covered in moss.

It was fascinating.

Varric was far inside, talking to his brother, while Hawke ran off to look at suspicious glowing mineral formations. She did love her shiny rocks.

Anders walked over to Danny.

"So, looking for whatever it was you wanted to come here to look for?"

"Right!" Danny shook himself from his reverie. "We're in the underground dwarven city. Let's find the library."

"Library?" Anders raised a single eyebrow.

"Yeah! I couldn't find what I was looking for in Kirkwall, so I figured the dwarves might know more on the subject."

"Library..." Anders sounded disbelieving. "Which subject are you researching?"

Danny considered not answering. Hawke's friends all knew Phantom was looking for a way back into the Fade, and Anders hadn't been able to help with that, but he still hadn't gotten the promised lessons on lying from Varric. Also, he couldn't come up with a good excuse. "Spirits and the Fade."

"You realise that dwarves don't have mages, right?"

Danny had, in fact, completely forgotten about that fact. "Maybe ancient dwarves had mages. Or at least invading demon armies from time to time."

Anders didn't look convinced. Danny ignored him.

"Is there anything in particular that you're trying to do?" There was a concerned wrinkle between Anders' eyebrows.

"Yeah." Danny fidgeted. "I need to find this one thing before I can go home. But the only way is through blood magic, and that's not really an option."

Anders' eyes grew very wide. Before he could ask for an explanation, Hawke and Varric joined them.

"So, wanna explore?" Hawke grinned. It was infectious.

"That's what we're here for." Danny smiled back at her.

"Onwards!" Hawke pushed up her arm and started walking in a random direction.

Anders and Varric exchanged an amused look before following.

The four of them soon left the rest of the expedition behind, going into the far reaches of the thaig.

The closed door they found was practically equipped with a neon sign saying _"Treasure this way."_ They made sure _not_ to close it behind them as they entered, since there as no handle on the other side.

 _'Nobody's been here for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years.'_

The thought was sobering.

The room behind the door was illuminated by a strange red glow. Columns reached towards a high ceiling. A wide set of stone stairs led up to a richly decorated dais.

They approached in silence. Something about the room demanded that much respect.

Danny found himself holding his breath as they reached the top, finally spying what was lying on the altar. It was a statue of glowing red stone, one of the ugliest things Danny had ever seen.

It was singing.

Danny's hand absent-mindedly hovered over his chest, over his ghost core. The humming tune from the statue resonated with that part of him, and it took him a moment to realise he wasn't hearing the song through his ears to begin with.

Hawke picked up the statue, interrupting the song.

Danny flinched. He wanted to rip the thing out of Hawke's hands, but he wasn't sure if that was because he wanted to keep it away from his friends or because he wanted it to himself. Whatever it was, it was dangerous. And alluring.

"Solid lyrium." Varric gave a low whistle. "Look at this thing! Got to be worth a fortune."

"I thought lyrium was blue." Danny gulped, realising that there was more saliva in his mouth than there should have been. He wiped sweaty palms against his trousers. "I don't like that thing."

That was a lie. He loved it. He wanted it.

The others gave him worried looks, but Danny was once again saved from having to explain himself by somebody arriving. The group turned around as footsteps echoed from below. Varric's brother stood by the door, looking around.

"Bartrand, look at what we found." Varric smiled. Danny noted that it might have been the first true smile he'd seen Varric direct at his brother.

Bartrand joined them, but Danny was barely able to pay attention to what he was saying. The song had picked up again, and it was drowning all other noise. Even though the song did not, in fact, make any noise.

Varric handed over the statue to Bartrand. "We'll look around some more."

"You do that." Bartrand nodded and headed down the stairs again.

Danny forcefully dragged his eyes away from the statue, turning away from it fully to do so. The rest of the room was far from uninteresting, but it barely managed to catch his attention.

There was the sound of rock grinding against rock as the door closed behind Bartrand.

Varric was quick to run down the stairs, banging a fist against the door. "Bartrand, you shut us in!"

The answering laugh made the hairs on Danny's neck stand up.

"Varric, you really _do_ notice everything."

"You're gonna betray your own brother over some statue!?"

"I'm not splitting this three ways."

"Bartrand!"

There was no reply. Bartrand had left.

Varric started swearing, a long string of insults directed at someone who couldn't hear them anymore.

Danny forced his erratic breathing back to normal. There was no reason to panic. He could salvage this. "It's fine. He was probably just affected by the song. It _was_ pretty hypnotic. I'm sure he didn't mean it."

"What song?" Hawke gave Danny a confused look.

Anders' eyes narrowed.

"You didn't hear it?" Danny shook his head. Of course they couldn't make it out properly, mortals didn't have cores. Still, the hypnotic effect could have been what affected Bartrand. "It was... something else. Like I just wanted to own it, keep it to myself. You know?"

Hawke looked confused.

Varric looked like he was fighting against hope, not daring to give his brother the excuse in case it turned out he hadn't been hypnotised by the song only Danny had heard.

"You know what, it doesn't matter. Let's just catch up with him, get that _thing_ away from him, and I'm sure he'll go back to his normal unlovable self." Danny smiled, trying to seem confident.

"And how do you suppose we do that? The door's closed." Hawke pointed her thumb at the door.

"I'm going to go out an open it from the outside, of course."

Three blank stares answered that statement.

"I walk through walls. You know that."

Hawke pulled herself straight as she realised they weren't really trapped, while Anders slumped with relief.

Danny grinned and walked into the wall.

As in, he crashed into it nose first, and landed flat on his back.

"Houston, we have a problem."

Anders and Hawke shared a look, probably deciding that neither of them knew who Houston was.

"What's wrong, Softy?" Varric offered him a hand, pulling him up.

"I don't know." Danny approached the wall, laying a hesitant hand against it. When he tried to push into it, his intangibility didn't seem to have any effect. "It's like it's protected from me."

Or against any spirit. Whatever was up with the ancient dwarves, between the lyrium statue and the walls, Danny was willing to bet they knew a lot more about magic than modern society gave them credit for.

Danny felt a grim sense of satisfaction in that.

"This is bad." There was a sinking sensation in Danny's stomach. They were trapped. Ghostly measures didn't work. They were _trapped_ in a locked room in an underground city that nobody had visited for thousands of years.

"Hey, this is no time to panic. Or despair. Or anything like that." Hawke leaned forward slightly, becoming a more commanding presence than normal. "We'll just have to find another way out of here."

Anders and Varric nodded, so Danny just followed them across the room. Despite the high ceiling, it felt like the walls were closing in on them.

On the other side of the dais, bringing the room to perfect symmetry, was another door.

This one wasn't locked.

"It probably leads deeper into the Deep Roads." Anders eyed the door warily.

"It's not like we have another choice." Varric's lips were a thin line.

"No, I guess we don't." Hawke pushed the door open and the four of them entered the unknown.


	17. Dealing with the Deep Roads

**AN:** Again, some lines are taken from _Dragon Age II_. (1½ lines or something, I'm paraphrasing a lot, and not letting the conversations happen exactly as they do in the game.)

* * *

 **Dealing with the Deep Roads**

After getting trapped inside the Deep Roads, Danny had quickly decided that Anders' hatred for the place was both justified and something he himself shared.

"You know, Varric, I _really_ don't understand your ancestors."

Apparently immediately getting Danny's point, the dwarf was quick to shrug. "Me neither."

"I'd rather live in the Fade than here."

"I wouldn't go _that_ far. Especially since Kirkwall is an option."

Danny let out a small laugh. "That's just dodging the question."

"I'm not sure how to choose between demons and darkspawn."

Danny disagreed. Demons were more... natural. Growing up around ghost hunters, and being half ghost himself, Danny found them to be logical. Not that Ghost Zone logic made any sense to mortals, who couldn't understand the way Obsessions drove ghosts. Darkspawn, on the other hand, were just _wrong._ Every single cell in Danny's body protested their very existence.

"At least the land around demons doesn't _die_ just because of their very _presence._ "

Varric shrugged, conceding the point.

"Besides, demons can be reasoned with."

"If you want to end up tricked and possessed, maybe." Varric looked less than impressed, despite knowing about Danny's inability to be properly possessed.

Danny could hardly argue against that, though wondered idly how much the conversation applied to him _personally._ He was still of the opinion that "demon" simply meant "enemy ghost", which meant the moniker did fit him, more or less. Depending on one's point of view.

As for the fear of possession... Overshadowing people had never seemed like such a big deal back home, but Danny also always left the body as soon as he could. The demons Varric had run into wouldn't do that.

Still, it was disheartening to talk to someone who worried about losing control of their body.

Of course, he couldn't talk to Varric about it, since he was currently _tricking_ everybody into believing he was a normal human.

Trickery and possession indeed.

 _'I wish I was home. Tucker would know what to say to make me feel better, and Sam could lecture me on morality or something.'_

But he wasn't at home, and there was only one person he could talk to about being a ghost.

He didn't think Mouse would be inclined to lecture him on morality, or even understand why it was a problem to begin with.

Further inside the tunnels, they didn't run into any more darkspawn. As much as a relief that was, the odd rock monsters that replaced them also tried to kill anyone who got too close.

Varric called them rock wraiths, after an old dwarven legend.

Anders called them "profane," but that might have been because they made him spew profanities.

The rock wraiths were literally made up of rocks, glued together by a glow that could only be magic. Their sturdy limbs stood in sharp contrast with their exposed ribs. Despite their humanoid builds, there was something insect-like about them.

Danny, Anders, Hawke and Varric had battled their way through the tunnels, travelling through areas that blended nature and dwarven design like a old puzzle, where half the pieces were mixed up with another image. Broken pillars covered in moss, old staircases, and natural cave walls dominated the the room they entered.

Danny's breath came out like a cloud of cold air.

Before he could shout a warning, a large pile of rocks in front of them took form – becoming a larger version of the rock wraith.

"Enough." It's voice was deep, but Danny couldn't describe it as gravely no matter how much he wanted to. "I would not see these creatures harmed without need."

" _They_ attacked _us._ " Hawke glared at the ghost.

"They will stop, unless I permit it."

Despite the implied threat, Danny grinned. "Awesome. We'll just go on our way then, and nobody needs to hurt anyone else. Sorry about intruding on your territory and killing your... friends? Minions? Food sources?"

"The last one," acknowledged the ghost. "They hunger, and I feed off their hunger."

"You're a demon." Anders' eyes narrowed, before turning to Danny. "And you knew."

"Hard not to notice." Danny shrugged, refusing to feel the shame Anders was aiming for. "Justice isn't _nearly_ strong enough to block out the energy of other spirits."

"That's a demon, not a spirit."

"Same difference." Danny waved negligently. "And it hardly matters, I already agreed to the deal."

Hawke visibly flinched at the word choice.

"You did that really fast so that none of us could disapprove, didn't you?" Varric gave Danny a level look.

"Of course, the terms were good. You lot would jump off a cliff if a demon told you not to. "

"Hey, now." Hawke pulled herself to her full height. "I'm the leader of this group, and-"

"And you said it yourself, they attacked us first. That's the only reason we fought them to begin with." Danny rolled his eyes. "I don't see what's bad about this."

"Aside from the 'deal with a demon' part?" Hawke crossed her arms. Despite trying to look angry, she mostly seemed uncomfortable.

"No, that part too."

"Softy, remember what we said about trickery? Just because it looks good doesn't mean the demon's not gonna double-cross us in the end." Varric's voice was soft. "That's how they get you."

"You wish to leave this place, but you're going to need my help to do so." The ghost turned towards Hawke, the self-professed leader, politely ignoring the accusations.

Danny dragged a hand over his face. There was no way that was going to fly.

The simmering anger Hawke had failed to direct at Danny came in full force at the ghost. "No. Not interested."

"Thanks, but we'll be fine." Danny gave the ghost a small smile, hoping to salvage the situation. "Let's just all leave this place without brutally murdering each other."

However, it didn't seem to make any difference, because the glow in the ghost's eyes turned sharper. It was nothing a human would know to react to, but the ghost in Danny was perfectly capable of recognizing 'scary eyes'.

Danny raised a shield on pure instinct, blocking a stone arm from crushing Hawke.

"Good reaction time, Softy." Varric pulled out his crossbow.

"Come on, Varric." Danny grinned and readied his sword. "Don't tell me you can't read the facial expressions of rock monsters."

"Well, Softy..."

"Too much of a _stone face_ for you?"

Varric groaned.

Danny laughed, hiding how his chest ached. There had been no reason to fight, and if the freaking ghost had just let it lie, Danny would have been able to convince the others to not attack it. Probably. Hawke and friends were a bit like ghost hunters back home, unable to see that 'demons' were people too.

Well, if Danny had to become their nagging concious, that was just something he had to do.

He'd start with the nagging part.

* * *

"I just think that if somebody isn't trying to kill us, that we shouldn't kill them. You know, no matter their species." Danny brushed pieces of smashed rock off his coat.

Hawke groaned. "I thought we were done with this conversation. I swear, it's like listening to And-"

Anders slowly turned his head towards Hawke, a thin smile on his lips. "Yes? Like what?"

"Aveline. I was going to say Aveline. You know how she goes on about us breaking the law too much."

Anders gave a snort, letting himself be mollified by the obvious lie.

The four of them were walking down an empty tunnel, with no end in sight. Every once in a while, the tunnel would change direction, but there had been no branching tunnels or any way to get lost. The ghost's claim that they would need its help was ringing rather hollow.

"But seriously, Softy, I'm starting to worry about you." Varric hurried his steps so that he was walking next to Danny, slightly ahead of Anders and Hawke. "Would you deal with a demon to find that thing your looking for which you won't tell us what it is?"

Would Danny let a ghost help him get back into the Ghost Zone? That was easy.

"Of course." Danny's answer was too easy to misunderstand, so he hurried to add. "I mean, it depends on what they'd want in return."

Anders shared a worried look with Hawke.

"Don't worry, there are like... four demons who are capable of helping me. Two of them wouldn't, because I punched them in their faces and trapped them in prisons in the Fade." Danny frowned, thinking about Pariah Dark and his own future self.

"Wait, what?" Varric raised an eyebrow.

"They tried to take over the world," defended Danny. "Somebody had to stop them."

"That's _really_ not the part I'm reacting to."

" _Anyway._ The third is more of a spirit than a demon, but if he was going to help me he would have already." There was no way that Clockwork didn't know where Danny was, which was annoying on more than one level.

"And the forth?" Hawke tilted her head.

"Also a spirit. He's called Wulf. I guess he's my best hope, if I'm going to get help from the Fade. He's my friend."

"You know, you saying he's a spirit would be a lot more soothing if you didn't insist demons and spirits are the same thing," noted Anders.

"Meh, it's all ghosts to me."

"Neither spirits nor demons are ghosts." Anders crossed his arms over his chest.

"Ha, shows how much _you_ know." Danny grinned, not hiding his smugness. He turned around to walk backwards so that he could look at Anders. "Ghosts go into the Fade. Give it a couple hundred years and you can hardly tell the difference between them and spirits born directly from the Fade."

"You know, I think I prefer the Chantry's version of what happens after death," noted Hawke casually.

"Yeah, but mine is actually true."

"Don't be sacrilegious." Varric's advice was accompanied by a sharp shake of the head.

"Okay, _fine._ Only some ghosts get stuck in the Fade. It's perfectly possible that whatever the Chantry says happens to the rest of them." Danny rolled his eyes.

"That's better."


	18. Rolling in the Deep (Roads)

**Rolling in the Deep (Roads)**

It was heard to measure time without sunlight, but Danny was sure that he, Hawke, Anders and Varric had been stuck inside the dwarven Deep Roads for days.

"I miss sunshine," complained Anders.

"If we get back to Kirkwall, I'm going to drink _so much_ beer." Varric looked into the distance. Or, well, a cave wall. Same thing really.

" _When_ we get back to Kirkwall, I'm gonna eat fresh fruit." Hawke had a dazed expression on her face. Their remaining provisions didn't contain anything that wasn't tried and salted. "Apples and oranges."

"I want soda."

Varric gave Danny a look, but he was apparently too tired to even ask what soda was.

That was not a good sign.

"Okay, enough." Danny halted abruptly, forcing the others to stop. "We're all exhausted. Let's take a break."

Never mind that their exhaustion was mostly emotional.

Hawke nodded and collapsed into a pile of legs and armour. None of the others were more graceful.

"Actually, Danny, I've been thinking..." Anders pulled out his pack and started rummaging through it. "I know you use your sword a lot, so you don't use your magic as much as I do, but I still think you should have a lyrium potion on hand in case you run out of mana." Anders pulled out a bright blue potion.

Danny's core sang, the tune different and much less alluring than when he had faced the red lyrium statue. Still, it was distracting.

He forcefully dragged his gaze from the potion.

Anders' eyes were narrowed, filled with suspicion. Was Danny's reaction to lyrium really that obvious?

"Thanks." Danny kept his tone light, not revealing that he'd noticed the way Anders looked. "I really should have packed some on my own."

"It's no trouble."

Danny's fingers closed around the flask, and he tried to keep his attention away from it even as he put it away.

A part of him wanted to do away with the charade. To stand up and scream 'I'm a ghost!'

A bigger part of him protested that his friends were perfectly willing to kill demons, which were also ghosts.

Except Hawke and company killed humans too, whenever they were attacked by bandits.

But Danny's living arrangements relied on Anders believing him to be a mage.

But Anders had been friends with Justice even before the whole possession thing, so it wasn't like the man disliked spirits. He had been suspicious about Danny's behaviour, not hostile.

Danny kept himself from groaning.

Life had been difficult even before the four of them had gotten stuck under ground.

"I never _did_ help Phantom," mumbled Hawke. "Wonder if he'll still be there when we get back."

"Phantom?" Danny made himself act casual.

"Oh, you'll like him, Softy. A spirit, but an odd one. Nothing like I've ever seen before." Varric gave a small smirk.

"Yeah," Hawke nodded to herself. "I'll introduce you when we get back."

If he wanted to confess to being Phantom, his friends had just served him the opportunity on a silver platter.

"That's... not necessary." Danny smiled weakly.

The silence stretched, and eventually Hawke pulled herself to her feet. "Well, then. I think that's enough for now."

The others nodded, and they started walking again.

Danny sighed. He wasn't sure what he wanted anymore, aside from escaping the Deep Roads... And escaping Thedas.

If he could find a way home, all his other problems would go away. It didn't matter what the others thought about him, if he wasn't there anymore. Sure, rejection would still hurt, but it wouldn't _matter._

In front of them were a set of narrow steps, leading up to a larger cavern filled with stone pillars. The pillars displayed rough veins of red, glowing lyrium.

"This looks important," Hawke made a show of looking around. "Think there's anything here?"

"This is the vault." Varric's eyes widened.

"Ooooh, treasure." Hawke grinned.

The four of them had reached the middle of the room when the sound of rocks grinding against rocks started behind them.

Danny slowly turned around, reaching for his sword and putting himself in front of Anders.

Stones pulled themselves together, forming a massive rock wraith, glowing the same red as the lyrium around it. The monster towered over them, at least twice as tall as Hawke.

Varric swore softly.

The rock wraith attacked.

Hawke barely avoided the swing. Varric and Anders walked backwards, away from the thing, even as they retaliated.

Hawke jumped, pushing her sword towards the exposed ribcage, but was blocked by one of the stone arms. Danny tried to get to a flanking position, but even when he got in a hit on the non-stone parts, it didn't seem to faze the rock wraith.

Then the monster suddenly fell apart, stone limbs pulled into a rough sphere floating in the air. The rock wraith crackled with power, like an approaching thunder cloud.

Danny was halfway through shouting out a warning.

The moment passed. Red power exploded from the rock wraith, a pulsing force expelled in all directions. All Danny could see was red. All he could feel was pain, his blood boiling like it had the day of the portal accident.

The ground shook beneath him, or maybe his sense of balance had been washed away by the pain. There was a ringing sound filling his ears.

Danny fell to his knees.

 _'It's going to bring down the roof on us.'_

His earlier assurances to himself, that he was a ghost and wouldn't be killed by collapsing rocks, didn't seem comforting anymore. There was no way Danny was going to reach all of the others in time.

Steady hands pulled on Danny's shoulders, and he was dragged to behind a pillar. The pillar offered some shade from the attack, letting Danny collect himself. He gave his rescuer a smile.

Varric nodded at him, completely serious for once.

Danny tried to take in the situation. Hawke had taken cover behind another pillar, but where was Anders?

His eyes searched the room, until they noticed Anders' fallen form. The healer lay on the ground, unmoving, as the waves of red energy washed over him. There was no way to tell, from across the room, whether he was only unconscious or more seriously hurt.

All of Danny's ghostly instincts were screaming at him to protect his friends.

"We're all going to die if I keep holding back." Danny wasn't sure of if Varric heard him over the ringing. Or maybe the noise was all in his head. It hurt enough for that to be true.

Varric gave Danny a long, considering look.

Danny Fenton forced himself to his feet, legs still unsteady, and let rings of light move across his body.

Danny Phantom didn't look at Varric as he rose into the air. When the waves of red energy died off, he shot around the pillar and _stopped_ _holding_ _back._

The rock wraith collapsed before he could get to it, exhausted by its own attack.

Danny's ice powers came to him easily, quicker and stronger than when he was in human form. The first blast coated the rock wraith's head in a thick layer of ice, which grew to cover its ribs with Danny's second attack.

The rock wraith recovered from its exhaustion, pulling itself up again. The ice cracked off harmlessly.

Dodging was a lot easier when flying, partially because Danny wasn't hindered by gravity, partially because he was a lot faster. Danny neatly flew around the hulking stone arms and grabbed onto the rock wraith's ribcage.

Then he pulled, a lot stronger than he was as a human. Two ribs cracked, falling apart in his hands.

He coated them with glowing green ecto-energy before plunging them deep into the creature's chest, into the burning red that might have been its heart. Even through the shielding energy that coated his hands, the fire burned. Danny pushed out the ecto-energy, exploding the monster from within _._

The ancient rock wraith struggled against the sheer force, but couldn't stand against it. Its limbs blew away, and when the ribcage and head came crashing down, they didn't glow anymore.

Danny didn't let himself return to human form as he dropped to the ground.

Varric ran past him and dropped down next to Anders. "He's still alive." Varric gently coached a barely-there Anders into drinking a healing potion.

"Wakey-wakey, Blondie." Varric's tone was soft. "You owe me ten silvers."

"Wh-t?" Anders slurred, and he had to be helped to a sitting position.

"Turns out Softy and Phantom are the same person. You lost the bet."

Anders turned his head, eyes slightly squinting, as if he was having trouble opening them completely.

Danny turned back into Fenton, knowing that all eyes were on him.

"Hi." His voice felt small. "So, yeah. Me. Phantom. The same person."

"Told you so." Varric carefully drove an elbow into Anders' side.

Anders reluctantly pulled some coins from his pocket and handed them over to Varric.

It was only then that the _betting_ part made sense in Danny's mind. It wasn't just a throw-away joke.

They had been betting on him.

They had known.

"What." The word didn't have the correct inflection for a question, so it sounded more as an accusation. That was fine. If he could find some indignation to wash away the embarrassment, that was only good.

"Come on, Softy. You were dropping hints."

"Was not."

"Yeah you were." Hawke smirked. "We were trying to make you fess up, earlier."

Panic and relief warred within Danny, leaving him strangely calm.

"Are you alright? Do you need healing?" Anders sounded worried.

Danny looked at his hands. They were mostly restored, since he had stayed in ghost form after the battle was over – Phantom's healing factor was better than Fenton's.

"I'm fine." Danny shook his head, but ruined the image somewhat by having to steel himself as the room span around him. He continued as he blinked away black spots in his vision. "I'm tired, not hurt."

"Maybe you should take that lyrium potion, then," suggested Varric.

"I'm not a mage though... Do you think its a good idea?" Danny directed the question at Anders, who was rapidly regaining colour.

"It's poisonous... and addictive. At least to normal humans..." Anders trailed off, obviously waiting for an explanation on the whole 'Danny is Phantom' thing.

"And to spirits?"

"I'm... not actually sure."

"I'm not sure I want to drink something that... erm... sings like lyrium does." Danny frowned. "Is it supposed to sound like that?"

"To a spirit, yes." Anders nodded. "That's what I wanted to check, when I gave it to you."

"So that's what you are? A spirit?" Hawke stuck her sword into the ground and leaned on it. "How do you have a body? Are you possessing someone?"

Danny took a lot more comfort than he had thought he would in the simple fact that nobody had attacked him yet.

"I'm not a spirit... Not really. I'm a ghost. Half-ghost, actually."

"On your mother's side?" quipped Varric.

"Both of my parents are human, thank you very much." Danny turned up his nose in a poor imitation of the snooty ladies in Hightown. "I just... happened to die really, really badly."

"Does that make any sense to you?" Varric leaned close to Anders' ear, but his whisper was still loud enough for Danny to hear.

Anders shook his head.

"Okay, erm." Danny dragged a hand through his hair. "You know ectoplasm... I mean, that green stuff that makes up the Fade?"

"Yes." Anders nodded, even while Varric shook his head and Hawke shrugged.

"I died in contact with _a lot_ of ectoplasm, which tied itself to me and sort of revived me while I was dying?" Danny threw up his hands in a gesture of resigned confusion. "Sorry, I don't really understand it myself. I just know I can switch between ghost and human. The other ghosts call me a halfa."

"So you're human?" Hawke had a suffering look on her face, like she didn't want to try to decipher Danny's rambling explanation.

"I guess. I think like a human, most of the time."

"But you're dead... Hey, if you're dead, does that mean I get to check your pockets for loot?"

"No."

"Well." Varric stretched his arms over her head, the very image of casual disregard. "I guess that explains a lot."

"You're all taking this very... well." Danny glanced between Varric, Anders and Hawke.

"It's not like we didn't have _some_ idea what was going on." Varric shrugged. "And besides, Justice is on the team already."

"I guess." Danny blinked.

"And we had all decided that we trusted Phantom," added Hawke.

"Mmhm?"

"We know you're a good kid," finished Anders. "Even with all the lies."

"Though considering how bad you are at lying, picking out what was the truth wasn't all that hard." There was a mischievous glint in Varric's eyes.

Danny glared.

"So, you wanted help to get back into the Fade?" Hawke interrupted the silent starting game. "Or was that just an excuse so we'd think you were a normal spirit?"

"You'll still help me, even though-"

"Haven't you been listening?" Hawke put her hands on her hips, pulling herself to her full height. "Yes, we'll help you! Yes, we're still friends! Yes, we're fine with spirits! Or half-ghosts, or whatever."

"Oh." Danny couldn't fight back his smile, which widened to near comical lengths. "Thank you... But if you're fine with spirits, you should really examine your views on demons."

Anders and Varric suddenly became really interested in getting Anders to his feet, while Hawke innocently wandered off without a word.

"I'll get you eventually," vowed Danny, feeling a bit like a supervillain at the end of a cartoon.

"Hey, I found treasure! And a door!" Hawke's voice came from a shadowy corner. "I think it leads to the surface."

"Hawke, I could kiss you!" Varric grinned. "I'm not going to, but I could."

* * *

 **AN:** That's the end of the Deep Roads quest.

Next week we begin Act II of the game, which will probably be shorter than Act I since I'm _really_ looking forward to all the plot stuff I'm going to change about Act III. I'm going to have so much fun, I just need to get there.

In other news, the snow that covered my fair city last week has yet to melt away. I think winter has arrived. It's cold and wet and miserable and I don't like it.


	19. Catching Up

**AN:** Hey, look, it's me! I'm writing again! It's been ages since I updated anything, and I'm sorry. I don't know where all the time went, but here's another chapter.

* * *

 **Catching Up**

The sun was setting over Kirkwall, painting the sky in pinks and oranges that reflected in the water of the bay. Danny sat alone by the docks, in an abandoned corner with his back to the beige stone of a warehouse wall. Getting into the corner had required liberal use of ghost powers, so he wasn't concerned about anyone stumbling upon him.

He sighed deeply.

A year.

Danny had spent an entire _year_ in Thedas, with no progress on getting home.

He idly picked up a piece of gravel and threw it into the water. The small plop was nearly drowned by the distant sounds of people working in the docks.

There had been doubts before, since ghost fights took away so much time from his studies, but now he was completely sure he'd never get into a university. He could only imagine his parents' disappointment, if he ever got back to them.

That was another thing. He wasn't sure anymore that he would be getting home.

The worst part was that he couldn't bring himself to feel all that bad about it. For all its faults, Danny had a place in Kirkwall. His job as Anders' assistant at the Clinic, coupled with running around doing what Hawke liked to call "quests", made him feel useful.

Further, the instant acceptance of his ghostly nature from Hawke, Anders and Varric was nice beyond words.

It made him feel guilty.

Deep in thought, Danny reached for another small stone. His palm brushed across the ground, coming up empty, when fingers tapped the top of his hand.

Shocked, Danny nearly jumped into the ocean. Only a strong hand closing around his upper arm kept him from taking an involuntary dive.

"Careful there, kiddo." Isabela, another member of Hawke's merry band of friends and probably a pirate, grinned as she helped Danny back to his previous position.

Danny's breath slowed down, but he couldn't help but give her an affronted look. "Don't do that!"

"You should have been paying better attention." Isabela waved off his concern, not at all serious. "What if I had been a Templar?"

"How did you even get here without me noticing!?"

"Climbed down the wall," said Isabela like it was obvious.

"Of course." Danny reluctantly looked up the wall. It was smooth, with no good places to put your hands if you wanted to climb it. Since there was no signs of a rope, Isabela must have slid down most of it like some sort of... very steep slide. "I don't think a Templar can do that without making any noise. What with the full armour and all."

Isabela grinned and took Danny's hand, depositing a small stone into it. Danny nodded in thanks before throwing it into the water. It skipped two times before sinking. Isabela gave an unimpressed snort before throwing her own stone. Despite the waves – the traffic in the harbour didn't let the water calm – her stone managed to skip four times. It was decidedly not fair.

"Did you actually want something, or what?" Danny tried to not sound rude, but he wasn't sure he succeeded. His emotions were still a bit all over the place.

Isabela took it in stride. "Yes, we're going shopping."

"You realise that I'm broke, right?"

"Pfft." Isabela stood up. "Irrelevant. I want a hat and you need a new coat."

"But I _like_ this one."

"It's broken." Isabela pointed to long rips caused by the coat being run through by swords. Danny's light leather armour did nothing to protect the fabric that hung _over_ it.

"It's got feathers."

"That doesn't make it less broken. Besides, I found one exactly like it."

"You did?" Danny choked on the words, knowing that he had stolen the coat from where it had been drying on someone's balcony.

"Yes, even had the same family crest and everything. Want to see where I found it?"

"I think I've got an idea," said Danny evenly.

"So, you related to the Organas, then?"

Danny nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"That's interesting, since it's actually the Fisher family crest..." Isabela smiled like the cat that got the canary.

Danny's lips thinned. Busted.

"What would make a nobleman wear another family's crest?"

Danny knew the question was rhetorical, but he couldn't help but answer. Besides, a logo was kind of like a crest. "Have you actually _seen_ the Fenton symbol? It's a neon green F inside a slightly less neon green ghost. Not something I'd want to be seen wearing."

Isabela gave him a disbelieving look. She seemed to be trying to imagine what the FentonWorks logo looked like, if the pursing of her lips were any indication. "That _would_ make hiding from the authorities hard. But you still need a new coat."

"I'll just mend this one, don't sweat it."

"Danny," Isabela got an uncharacteristically serious look in her eyes. She placed both of her hands on his shoulders. "I don't care. I just want to rob rich snobs with you."

"Oh. I don't... I don't really approve of stealing though."

"But the coat-"

"Desperate times." Danny shrugged in half-hearted apology. "Besides, I was gonna visit Bethany."

Isabela's eyebrows shot up, but her face remained otherwise blank. "Bethany, as in Hawke's sister Bethany?"

Danny nodded.

"As in the mage that the Templars locked in the Circle? The very place you're trying to avoid getting locked into? _That_ Bethany? Because I just want to be sure you're planning what I think you're planning."

Danny fidgeted. Bethany had been caught by the Templars during the Deep Roads Expedition. She was stuck in the Gallows, and not allowed contact with outsiders beyond the occasional letter. "I figured it'd brighten her day."

"Did having Templars for parents mess up your sense of self-preservation?"

"Probably," shrugged Danny, because it was true. "Wanna come with? It's not petty theft, but it's still illegal."

"Yes."

* * *

The Kirkwall Circle of Magi was placed on an small island across the harbour, and looked like it was probably a former prison. (Not that it wasn't currently, technically, a prison.) The public were allowed entrance to the market outside the gates during the day, but at night it closed and no boats took people across the water.

Naturally, Danny and Isabela had waited for nightfall before going.

Despite Danny being invisible and intangible and capable of flight, Isabela was somehow _still_ able to keep up with him when it came to breaking in and sneaking around.

It should probably have been worrying, but it was mostly just annoying.

The smug smiles she sent in his direction weren't helping, especially since he was still invisible. At least there were some doors where she needed him to phase them through.

The corridors were bare of decorations, with the occasional light fixture being the only thing that broke the monotony of the stone walls. Of course, every once in a while there was a fully armed Templar passing by, and that added a little something to the atmosphere. That little something was more oppression, but still.

Similarly, the rooms the mages lived in were small, stone, and built without pretending that they were anything other than cells. At least if the high placement of the small windows were anything to go by.

Isabela slipped through a door, barely opening it in order to do so and closing it in Danny's face before he could follow. Danny slipped through the wall.

Inside, alone on an a small, rickety bed sat Bethany. Her head had snapped up, but the thick tome in her lap was still open.

"Surprise!" Isabela stage whispered the words and waved her arms widely. There was a grin on her face.

Danny took that as his queue to become visible again. "Hello."

"Isabela? Danny? What are you doing here?" Bethany blinked owlishly at them. Her voice took on a tone of urgency. "You shouldn't be here."

"Well, I was only planning on visiting... But now that I think about it we should probably spring you." Danny smirked.

"I don't _want_ to escape." Bethany's voice became a harsh whisper, and her eyes fluttered towards the closed door.

"But-"

"Living here isn't that bad."

Danny raised a finger, but Isabela's hand on his shoulder stopped him from pointing out that 'not that bad' was far from good.

"Why not? I've been in prisons that have been nicer than this." Isabela waved lazily at the room. "Though they smelled worse. You don't have the classic _eau de cheap beer_ in here." Isabela gasped theatrically. "I bet that's because you don't have any cheap beer at all. You poor thing."

"I'm tired of running." Bethany scuffed her toes against the ground, avoiding eye contact.

"Ugh, _fine._ Stay in here if you're gonna be that way." Danny crossed his arms over his chest. His tone was somewhere between violent and huffy. "But we're still gonna break in and tell you all the latest gossip!"

"You know all the latest gossip?" Bethany tilted her head.

Danny waved towards Isabela, who actually went to bars and talked to people rather than sat around grinding herbs into healing potions during her free time.

"Right. Of course."


	20. Doing the Max von Sydow

**AN:** Only Hawke, Varric and Anders know about Danny being a halfa. The rest think he's a mage using weird foreign traditions. The only one who believes differently is Mouse, who thinks Danny is a spirit pretending to be human.

I mashed three chapters together, because none of them was cooperating. As such, here's the start of the actual plot of Act II. (Well, of the fic anyway. The plot of Act II of the game is hardly fitting with the whole mage/templar/spirit/demon theme. So, yeah, original plot.)

Sorry for not updating in ages.

* * *

 **Doing the Max von Sydow**

On a small floating island in a sky of green, there was a house. The house was plain, made from red bricks and gray tiles. The roof completely lacked any metal contraptions that looked like stranded spaceships.

A dark purple demon, with much too many eyes, knocked gently on the door with a single knuckle. The demon was twice as tall as the door, and three times as wide. Consequently, the soft knock echoed loudly through the house.

The door opened, an a human-looking boy popped out his head. At the sight of the giant demon, a smile spread across his face. "Mouse!"

"Danny." Mouse nodded in greeting before glowing and shrinking, turning into a human dressed in the fine robes of a senior enchanter of the Circle of Magi. "I see you've redecorated, little spirit. It's good that you've learned how to manipulate the environment of your own lair."

"Yeah." Impossibly, Danny's smile widened further. "You've _got_ to see what I've done with the place. I based it on my real home..."

Mouse gave a small amused snort as he followed Danny inside. "I have to admit, I've never seen anything quite like this."

"Don't say that _before_ I've shown you my video games."

"Video... games?" Mouse tilted his head, his usual superior attitude diminishing slightly as he furrowed his brows.

Danny bounced on the balls of his feet and grabbed onto Mouse's arm to drag him further into the house. "Come on, I'm gonna teach you how to play Smash."

* * *

The Hanged Man was the most popular pub (and inn) in Kirkwall's Lowtown. It was also a complete dump.

For some reason Danny couldn't begin to understand, Varric lived there. He had a set of rooms rented until further notice, despite not only being a permanent resident of Kirkwall, but having enough money to live somewhere that didn't stink of cheap beer and echoed with the sound of bar fights.

The main piece of the first room of Varric's "suite" was a large table. It was usually covered in business documents. Now, however, it was clear of everything but a set of playing cards.

As per Danny's usual luck, the playing cards in Thedas weren't the same as on Earth. Luckily, they weren't much more complicated. Similarly, Varric's favourite game, Wicked Grace, was easy enough to wrap his head around. It was mostly, but not completely, exactly like how Danny imagined poker. That Danny had never played poker was irrelevant.

The _real_ problem wasn't the rules, but rather that Varric's poker face (Wicked Grace face?) was superb. Also, he cheated. Probably. Danny hadn't caught him in the act, and he wasn't able to confidently tell whether or not Varric's protests that he was innocent were real or not.

The only way to beat him would be for Danny to cheat himself, and get away with it.

Apparently, that was what Varric meant by telling Danny he would give him 'lessons on lying'.

"Watch your tells, Softy." Varric grinned as Danny noticed that he had, once again, put his fingers at the back of his throat when seeing that he had been dealt a horrible hand.

"Varric, I hope we're close enough friends that you won't take offense to his..." Danny glared. "But I _hate_ you."

Varric chuckled.

* * *

Kirkwalls Darktown was a _literal_ sewer. Parts of it were from the old mines, but those had been closed years ago. What was left were many series of tunnels and secret rooms. There was no wonder Darktown was a popular hiding place for anyone from the Coterie (aka the dwarf mafia) to normal, unorganized criminals. The refugees fleeing the darkspawn in the south were the only ones not likely to stab you for looking at them wrong. However, even the refugees resorted to stabbing if you got too close.

According to Danny, the one part of Darktown worth keeping was Anders' clinic. He healed anybody who needed it, without asking for money in return. Also, he had given Danny a place to sleep.

As such, Danny happily helped out whenever he could. Despite the whole not-a-mage thing that kept him from learning healing magic, Danny had plenty of experience taking care of injuries. It turned out that taking care of bleeding wounds was a lot easier when they were on other people, so your mind wasn't going dizzy from blood loss.

Which was why Danny was only mildly surprised when small hands tugged at his coat.

He looked down to see a small boy, probably not yet ten, with red hair and shabby clothes.

"Help, mum is-" the kid sniffled, "-not waking up."

Danny's mouth suddenly felt very dry.

 _'Crap. She's dead, isn't she? How am I gonna tell him-'_

Danny hunched down, bringing them to eye level with each other. "Take me to her, I'll see if there's anything I can do." He smiled as gently as he could, glad that the kid didn't seem to pick up on his hidden panic.

The kid took hold of the edge of Danny's coat and started leading him further into Darktown.

 _'What am I supposed to say? Jazz, please discover telepathy and some sort of sibling connection and tell me what to say! Siblings are kind of like twins, right? Right!? Jazz! Sam! Anders! Save me!'_

It was at that point that Danny realised that he could have brought Anders to deal with the mess.

Obviously, that was when the kid stopped and pointed at a crooked wooden door. "Here."

 _'I feel like I'm waking into something horrible.'_

The kid opened the door, with Danny following closely behind. The whole in the wall lead to a fairly large room, where every single section was covered in empty blankets. There was a heavy smell of sweat and staleness in the air. The kid's family was obviously not the only one scatting there. A dropping sound echoed through the room.

As they walked further inside, Danny gingerly stepping over stuff, they were reached by the sounds of laboured breathing.

 _'She's not dead!'_

Danny almost grinned.

The boy's mother lay bundled up in blankets, only her face visible. Her cheeks were red, in sharp contrast with how pale the rest of her face was. There was a thin layer of sweat on her forehead. Her eyes were closed, and there was no indication she had noticed she wasn't alone.

When he got close to the woman, the air grew heavy and hard to breathe. There was a sharp taste of ozone, matching the static in the air making the fine hairs on Danny's neck stand up. The air seemed too dry, considering the dampness of the rest of the room.

"Is your mom a mage?" Danny asked, as he sat down on his knees and put a hand to the woman's forehead to check her for a fever.

The kid nodded solemnly, not even a little hesitant on sharing such a big secret with a virtual stranger.

 _'Kids are weird... Okay, so it's probably her magic going out of control that's making everything so weird.'_

As Danny checked her vitals, and whatever else he could think of – a small unfired ectoblast on one finger let him see that her pupils were reacting the way they should.

"I think she's just got the flu. She should be fine if she gets a lot of rest and liquids." Danny nodded to himself, as if that would make him more confident in his diagnosis.

 _'Save me, Anders. I don't know what I'm doing.'_

Except he could hardly tell the kid that. Besides, the woman really did seem just like Jazz had when she had gotten the flu back when she was twelve. Except Jazz had been generally healthy beforehand, not starving in a damp and probably moldy sewer with tens of other people. The mage's immune system was likely already under stress, from living in those conditions.

"I'll give her a general Health Potion, hopefully that'll give her the boost needed to fight this off on her own. Come to the Clinic if she's not better by tomorrow."

Danny pulled out a red potion and started thinking of how he'd get her to drink it without accidentally drowning her when her skin started to move. Ripples like water in a pond after you throw a rock ran across her face.

 _'That's not normal!'_ Danny panicked internally, stepping back and bringing the kid to hide behind him. _'Is this some sort of magical disease? Is that a thing in this hell of a dimension?'_

The magic in the air grew stronger, and the woman's body started to float upwards.

Danny's heart beat loudly in his ears.

 _'Why? Why? WHY!?'_

The woman's hair blew around her, even though they were inside, and her when her eyes opened they were pure black – a far cry from the blue of before. The air cracked with heat.

Her voice opened, an in two echoing voices that spoke in unison - one dark and gravely, one melodic and high - she laughed.

"Oh, I get it." Danny exhaled. "You freaked me out there for a sec, but you're just possessed by a demon."

The abomination's laughter stopped.

"I actually know how to deal with this situation!" Danny felt like crying tears of relief.

The demon attacked, forcing Danny to pull his sword to deflect the blow.

Their fight, made difficult by Danny trying to not harm the demon's human vessel and protect her son and not get hurt himself, moved out into the street outside. Danny wasn't overly concerned. People in Darktown knew to run away whenever a battle occurred. He wouldn't need to worry about his surroundings, unlike a during fight in Hightown.

He pushed the kid away as gently as he could, before turning intangible and swinging his sword towards the possessed woman. The sword harmlessly passed through her body, before an injured Rage Demon stumbled backwards, away from the collapsing mage.

"One point to the exorcist," grinned Danny. "Now I don't need to hold back." He raised his hand, ghostly ice gathering, before freezing the demon solid.

"Oh yeah! Oh yeah! Who's the best!?" Danny raised his arms into the air, victory sweet on his tongue. He turned around to see if the kid and his mother were fine.

Behind him stood a squadron of fully armed Templars.

 _'Crap.'_

Danny just stopped, his thought came to a sudden halt and he didn't know how to react. The Templars _had seen._ They were seemingly as shocked as Danny, if their own inaction was any indication.

"Erm... Hi? Cullen, right?" Danny asked the leader. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to pretend you didn't see anything? I'm not fully opposed to bribery, if that's what it takes."

"You... You killed the demon without harming the mage." Cullen's voice was a reverent whisper.

"No! You're imagining things!"

"I saw it with my own eyes," Cullen's expression grew hard. "Do you have any idea what such an ability _means!?_ Don't you realise how many people you could- You're coming with us."

"Yeah, no." Danny took half a step back, before abandoning all pretence and running away. As soon as he turned a corner, he turned intangible and escaped through a wall. He fell into the sewers proper, but he was too filled with adrenaline to care.

 _'This is bad.'_

* * *

 **AN:** Yeah, despite being the sort of antagonist for this arc, Cullen means well. Danny's ability to exorcise is just so much of a game changer that it's bound to have this type of consequence.


	21. With Great Power

**With Great Power**

Danny paced Varric's room in the Hanged Man. The door was closed, muffling the sounds of drunken conversations. Varric sat in a chair, following Danny's movements with interest.

"The Templars are gonna find me." Danny was rambling, he knew he was. He just couldn't stop the sludge of words falling from his mouth. "The Templars are gonna find me, and they're gonna realise that I'm not a mage because they know more about mages than I do. And then they're gonna realise that I'm a ghost. Spirit. Whatever. And then they're gonna use their scary Templar abilities to make me unable to phase and they're gonna stick a sword in my gut and I'm gonna die! Varric! I don't wanna die!"

Varric hummed, Danny took it as agreement.

"And even if they won't kill me, there's no way they'll treat me like a person when they realise I'm not a mage. Heck, they don't even treat mages like people most of the time! And mages _are_ people!"

Varric nodded.

"What should I dooooooooooooooo!?"

Varric shrugged.

"You're no help at all!" Danny threw out his arms in irritation.

"Well, I can't say I've ever been chased by the Templars, Softy. I'll do what I can do help you, but Cullen isn't taking my bribes."

"Yeah, I already tried that." Danny fell exhausted into a chair.

"You should ask Anders, he's an expert on escaping the Templars."

Danny nodded, trying and failing to hide his misery. "I did. He told me to lay low. He thinks things might cool down if I just wait it out." Danny scowled. "It won't do that, Varric! I exorcised someone right in front of them! In my human form! They'll never let this go! I even asked Mouse for any tips."

"I'm gonna ignore how I don't know how that is and just ask you what he said, since that's what you want."

"He told me to possess and kill them all. I don't wanna kill them all. They're only after me because they want to save people!"

"Yeah, I'll have to agree with _killing them all_ being a really bad idea."

"Thank you, Varric, I knew I could count on you."

"Who is this 'Mouse' person? He sounds like a bad influence."

"Says the guy who taught me how to cheat while gambling."

"Touché." Varric sighed. "Really, though, kid. You should get some sleep. You working yourself up over this won't help anyone."

Danny nodded, the very picture of misery.

"Do you want me to walk you back to the Clinic?"

Danny shook his head. "I'll manage on my own. Thanks."

"Just remember, they don't know you can walk through walls. If they catch you, you'll probably manage to escape before they realise you're not a mage. Right?"

"Right. Thanks for letting me freak out on you." Danny smiled as he left, feeling slightly lighter.

Danny ended up alone as the ones leaving the pub in the late hour were mostly headed towards different parts of Lowtown, not going towards the many hidden stairs to Darktown.

As such, Danny noticed immediately that he was being followed.

He looked around as nonchalantly as he could for somewhere he could hide. A dead end wouldn't be a problem with his abilities, and any opportunity to turn invisible would help.

If _he_ had been hunting himself, with the authority of the Templars as backing, he would strike in the open – which meant before they reached the hidden stairs. That meant Danny couldn't count on using them to get away.

Danny felt too open, too exposed. Turning invisible or intangible openly would be giving away his trump cards. It was a last resort.

He didn't hurry his steps, or give any indication that he had noticed his pursuers, even though his entire body twitched with a suppressed need to run.

 _'Why haven't they done anything yet?'_

Maybe he was just being paranoid.

None-the-less, he kept looking for a quick escape.

Danny was about to go invisible as soon as he turned a corner, putting a wall between him and his pursuer, when a strong hand closed around his arm and _pulled_.

Danny blinked, and when he opened his eyes again he was inside. A thin hand was pressed against his mouth, but other than the other than that he was not restrained.

When he gathered himself enough to look around, he was in a normal warehouse, he found his "attacker" to be a surprisingly normal looking merchant woman. No visible weapons, no hulking muscles. If anything, she was plump. Brown hair, brown eyes, a heart-shaped face. She looked like she was someone's mom.

She winked at him.

Danny decided that he probably didn't need to knock her out and escape.

Outside the warehouse, the much too soft steps of Danny's pursuer passed.

 _'Shouldn't there be more amour?...'_

Danny's breath caught. It wasn't Templars. It was _bounty hunters_.

Of course they put a price on his head!

Templars couldn't blend in with the crowd if their lives depended on it, a bit like the Guys in White back home. Their standard issue heavy armours made them stand out. Somebody quick and agile could spot them and get away, as long as you didn't let yourself get surrounded.

Bounty hunters looked however they wanted to look. Had whatever skills they found necessary.

When the footsteps retreated, Danny exhaled, shoulders sagging as he relaxed. "Thanks. Not sure why you helped me, but I appreciate it."

The woman grinned, a mischievous light in her eyes. "Of course I did. You work for the Healer, don't ya? You're his apprentice, or something. Right?" Her accent was thick and foreign.

"You mean Anders? Well... yeah. Kinda."

"Thought I recognized you. The clinic has done more for the poor in this city than anyone in charge. Those big rich people with their fancy titles don't care 'bout the little guy, so when Templars and bounty hunters show up, we gotta care for each other."

Danny blinked. That was nice. A bit naïve, perhaps, but it was still...

It felt like something had gotten stuck in his throat.

This kind of thinking, calling people naïve for helping each other... He had never thought like that before arriving in Kirkwall.

Was that the sort of person he was becoming? Cynical and selfish?

No.

No, he would not accept that.

The world didn't get better from people only looking after themselves. And he wanted Kirkwall to become a better place, one with less people murdering each other and more people helping each other.

Danny smiled as brightly as he could. "Thanks."

* * *

The sun stood high in the sky, and the small training field was empty save their small group; Aveline, Hawke and Fenris.

It was the first day off of the month, aka Aveline holding extra training for the people in Hawke's circle of friends who used swords.

Maybe it was due to being Captain of the City Guard, but Aveline was fearsome when it came to training. Skipping it was... not well adviced.

Which was why Danny was there, even though he knew what the woman's reaction would be.

Danny took a deep breath as he walked into the field, gaining the attention of the three already there.

"You!" A gauntlet-covered finger was pointed in Danny's direction. Aveline looked livid, except not really. More like she was worried. "Why is there a price on your head? What did you _do_?"

"Ah, erm, well. You see," Danny fumbled for words. "Templars saw me exorcise this demon and now they want me to work for them, probably."

"Why don't you?" Fenris scoffed, his eyes narrowing. "The Templars are the authority on demons, they could use someone with your abilities."

Aveline nodded, seconding the opinion.

"Because _Templars._ " Danny held up his hands, as if to encompass the concept he wanted to convey. "I'm a... mage. We don't... It doesn't work."

Neither Aveline nor Fenris looked convinced. Hawke sent Danny an apologetic smile behind their backs, but that wasn't particularly helpful.

"I don't want to be locked up."

"You have faced demons before, you know the danger they pose." Fenris was glaring, but he generally glared at Danny, so it was hard to tell his mood from that.

"Is it really his responsibility, though?" Hawke looked practically nonchalant. "I know we help people a lot, but sometimes they gotta deal with the consequences of their own mistakes. People who are possessed by demons all agreed to it, you know?"

That made the two glares zoom in on the swordswoman, rather than Danny. He was grateful.

"Demons are masters of trickery." Fenris practically sneered, which was a bit odd because for somebody who hated _everyone,_ he didn't usually seem to hate Hawke.

"He can save people, and you're the only one capable of it. Does it matter if it was their own mistakes that put them in the position in the first place?" Aveline's tone was resolute.

"Shouldn't it?" Hawke leaned on her sword, which was stuck into the ground.

Aveline's lips thinned.

"Demons kill innocents, people who aren't possessed," commented Fenris.

"Anybody could deal with that. I'm just the only one who can fix things without hurting the one who is possessed." Danny drew their attention back to himself. "And I will, but not with the Templars. We run into plenty of demons in our normal daily lives, and since I can sense them I'm effective enough if I want to search them out on my own."

Neither Aveline nor Fenris looked convinced.

However, it wasn't their call.

It was Danny's.

* * *

 **AN:** I thought it was nice in the game where, when you're first looking for Anders to ask for his help with the Deep Roads Mission, a bunch of refugees show up and challenge you to a fight because they think you're threatening their healer. The world of Dragon Age is horrifying in so many ways, but at least some people look out for each other.

Whether Templar anti-magic would work on Danny's ghost powers... well, they work on demons in the game, so I'm going to have to say "yes".

Spider-man references and Danny Phantom go together like ice-cream and sunshine.


End file.
